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Wil & Washik Parkar

Wednesday 7th June 2017

5-7 June saw the Heart Valve Voice team at the British Cardiovascular Society (BCS) conference in Manchester.

The BCS conference brings together cardiovascular clinicians, students, patients and volunteers to broaden their understanding and knowledge of all of the major sub specialist areas of cardiovascular medicine and research.

This conference was a excellent opportunity for Heart Valve Voice to expand our network of contacts in the cardiovascular field. We were able to meet many new faces but also caught up with some of our supporting clinicians such as;

  • Bernard Prendergast, consultant cardiologist and Simon Redwood, honorary consultant cardiologist from Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital
  • Professor Phil McCarthy, consultant cardiologist and Professor Olaf Wendler, consultant cardiothoracic surgeon from Kings College Hospital
  • Marc Dweck, Senior Clinical Lecturer in Cardiology, University of Edinburgh
  • Guy Lloyd, Consultant Cardiologist and Clinical Lead for echocardiography at Barts
  • Benoy Shah, consultant cardiologist, Southampton General Hospital
  • Bill Toft from the UK TAVI Trial
  • Simon Ray, cardiologist, Wythenshawe Hospital
  • Mark De Belder, Cardiothoracic Services, South Tees Hospitals
  • Washik Parkar GP, Gloucester House Medical Centre
  • Rachel James, Consultant Cardiologist from Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals Saul Myerson, consultant cardiologist, John Radcliffe Hospital
  • Richard Steeds, Consultant Cardiologist, University Hospitals Birmingham
  • Shelly Ramen Hayley, Heart Valve Voice trustee and Consultant cardiologist and lead for echocardiography, Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospital.

In addition to sharing the Heart Valve Voice message with the delegates, we were able to attend some of the informative education sessions. The sessions that we attended included Endocarditis MDT Live, about listening to patient case studies and their importance in a patient’s treatment plan and Vexing Valves, that discussed the range of interventions for valve disease patients.

We also had an opportunity to walk around the Simulator Area and Imaging Village where we could see some of the new technology used to help clinicians view the heart via some live demonstrations. This technology is often used to help detect and view the hearts of patients with suspected heart valve disease to assist with their diagnosis and it was a great opportunity to see how the technology works and what patients experience.

All in all it has been an excellent few days and we are looking forward to the next conference which will be the British Society of Echocardiography Annual Conference in Edinburgh.