By Wei Lau, M.D.
The second annual Transesophageal Echocardiography (TEE) seminar, held on February 13, 1999, was a big success. We had a great turn out; there were many residents and attending Anesthesiologists present. A majority of perfusionists and cardiac operating room nurses also attended. There were visitors from several local community hospitals, and some from as far away as Marquette. The course objectives were well met and the initial feedback I have received was excellent. Our guest speaker was Dr. David Bach of the University of Michigan Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Cardiology. His participation provided a greater interaction between the anesthesiology and internal medicine departments.
It was a great experience for me to organize lecture topics, speakers, and workshops. I would like to thank everyone who helped out and contributed their time to the seminar, especially representatives from Hewlett Packard. Many thanks to Drs. Baliga, Benedict, Kazanjian and Lieberman for their effort in putting together slide and video tape presentations. Denise Fletcher also did a wonderful job in assisting with putting the course together.
TEE seminar plans for the future: As a demand for the knowledge of transesophageal echocardiography increases, we as anesthesiologists should further our knowledge base of TEE in order to provide better patient care both in the operating room and perioperatively. Furthermore, we should be able to interpret the cardiologist’s echocardiography findings if the patient comes to us with an extensive echocardiography report. For our course next year, we plan to invite an internationally renowned expert to be our keynote speaker. We also intend to modify our course objectives to include information that will help with preparation for the TEE certification examination. This will likely expand the duration of the seminar to two days. Again, I thank all the people that participated in the TEE Seminar this year and hope to see you again next year.