Dear delegates,
I’m proud to highlight that
our Association is currently the most dynamic educational body within the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), offering a broad range of educational activities, including the
Echo Boxes and
Webinars. These activities serve both the continuing education needs of established cardiologists and training needs of young practitioners.
This year our Association has changed its name and profile, becoming the
European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging (EACVI).
The EACVI, with the help of the ESC Working Groups on
Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance and
Nuclear Cardiology and Cardiac CT,
is now entitled to deliver education in all the imaging modalities.
The extension of these objectives is highly demanding, requiring an appreciation of developments in all imaging technologies in order to apply them to the better diagnosis of our patients.
Guided self-education will be necessary, as well as promotion of the new techniques among our members.
The
EACVI Education and Web committees are currently working hard on the development of a
comprehensive educational platform in imaging that will be placed at the disposal of our members.
The growing number of our members (over 2 900) and increasing interest from practitioners outside Europe has created a demand for more courses and Webinars.
All these factors make promotion of
EACVI educational activities challenging.
From the perspective of an
EACVI Teaching Course organiser, the
increased number and extended scope of the courses will require greater involvement than ever before from the National Societies.
Organising courses in different countries with ‘friendly support’ from the EACVI Board seems to offer the best solution and provide improved access to the cardiovascular imaging knowledge for all members, mostly in their national languages and within an acceptable distance.
Moreover, this approach would promote networking based on the specific modalities.
Besides the new educational forums, such as Webinars, which seem to be proving effective, I believe that
direct face-to-face exchanges between scientists should not be entirely abandoned.
Perhaps an agreement with the National Societies to recognise both national and EACVI education (for both e-learning and live courses) as a part of national cardiologist training would help the case.
A greater challenge, however, will be to inspire and stimulate some academic centres to use EACVI learning as a part of their post-graduate education.
Despite all the technical modalities we master, we should never forget that our education should not be aimed at becoming a better technician or engineer, but at becoming a better doctor and friend to our patients.
