The mission statement of the Endoluminal Technology Portal
Now under construction for about a year, the Endoluminal Technology Portal for CTSNet should soon be a reality. I have been fortunate in recruiting a brilliant team of thoracic surgeons trained in endovascular therapies along with two prominent interventional cardiologists from the US and Europe. As in any endeavor, the success of the Endoluminal Portal will not only rely on the efforts of the editorial board but will ultimately rely on the input and contributions from the surgical/interventional community. So I welcome your enthusiastic future support in making this Portal a unique source of information for endovascular specialists worldwide. Below, please find an excerpt from the mission statement of the staging website. I would be very interested about any comments that you may have.
• The endoluminal technology has penetrated vascular surgery, cardiology and radiology. The endovascular treatment of the thoracic and the abdominal aorta, the renal, the iliac and the carotid artery, and really any vessel in the body has become a reality. Our vascular surgery colleagues have adopted this technology, and have incorporated it into their practice. They have evolved into endovascular specialists who can offer both open and endovascular options to the patients and ultimately improve the quality of care. The thoracic surgeon must follow the path of our vascular surgery colleagues, and become competent with the endovascular procedures and the various imaging modalities, as endoluminal procedures on the great vessels and the heart may offer less morbidity and improved outcomes. The thoracic surgeon should evolve into the cardiovascular specialist being capable of offering both open and endovascular treatments to great vessels and the heart.
• By becoming trained in image-guided intervention and endovascular procedures, the thoracic surgeon will become similar to our interventional cardiologists. Increasing collaboration among the specialties should ultimately allow our specialties to merge, as we start treating valvular heart disease in conjunction with our interventional cardiologist colleagues and treat coronary patients in a hybrid approach. The classical boundaries and training paradigms may have to be altered to catalyze the fusion of surgeons/cardiologist allowing for optimal training of future endovascular specialists. The editorial board of the CTSNet Endoluminal Technology Center includes a group of brilliant open- and endovascular-trained thoracic surgeons as well as interventional cardiologists to spearhead the online educational needs of the future generations of endovascular specialists.
• Thoracic surgeons have been reading chest/cardiac CTs and MRIs and coronary angiograms for many years. The operative treatment of the patient is based on our reading of the chest imaging. In fact, thoracic surgeons are the only specialist who can correlate preoperative chest imaging with intraoperative findings. Given this long tradition, thoracic surgeons are well suited to read the cardiac CT and cardiac MRI; they should be active in getting trained and credentialed along with our cardiology colleagues.
• The principle "Primum non nocere" and aiming for clinical excellence must remain our first guideline. Although adoption of new technology has been the forte of thoracic surgeons, the pressure for rapid adoption should not lead to compromise in the quality and safety of patient care.
• The mission of this Portal is to:
Familiarize and educate thoracic surgeons, residents and fellows as well as other endovascular specialists with the basics and recent advances in endoluminal technology.
Offer information on clinical training sites in various areas of endoluminal technology.
Inform the readers about the credentialing process for various endoluminal procedures, as well as cardiac CT and cardiac MR.
Provide access for thoracic surgeons trained in endoluminal technology to act as mentors for training candidates. These mentors can help interested surgeons and residents in training with clinical activities and recommendations for the workplace. We hope to expand our mentor group to include interventional cardiologists offering endovascular training.
Provide a forum for discussion of common issues and practices in endoluminal technology.