Teleconference Update by Cox 11/08

As partners, colleagues and/or supporters I though you might like to know that after years of only dreaming about it, we were finally able to initiate the series of live World Heart Foundation International Educational Teleconferences just last Thursday. We started with the "Asian Series" and had a terrific conference. We used the facilities of the World Bank Global Learning Development Centers in Washington DC, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City and had nearly 200 surgeons from about 20 countries participate, though we had nearly twice that number register. The Asian surgeons had requested an agenda in which 2-3 recognized experts in a specific field give a total of four 30-min talks each followed by a 30-min Q&A. It went off without a hitch. Niv Ad and I gave the first conference on atrial fibrillation and two Professors of Surgery in Hanoi and HCM City acted as co-hosts of the conference. It was terrific to have a dialogue in real time with a group of surgeons sitting around a conference table in Bangladesh, another group in Hanoi, another in China, etc. I've always thought that this would be a great way to update the local surgeons on the latest surgical techniques and practices so we are all very excited. The conferences are being held monthly and the next two are on Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery with John Puskas and Bob Guyton from Emory University in Atlanta and on Congenital Heart Surgery (Single Ventricle) with Richard Jonas and his Pediatric Cardiology staff from the National Children's Medical Center in DC. Since the Asian surgeons have picked all the topics as well as the format, we think we may have a winner!