 | Groningen, June 2009 Dear Colleagues, Continuing developments in the field of cardiovascular medicine rapidly surmount boundaries between a wide variety of specialties. On the one hand a formerly mainly diagnostic speciality such as radiology is dealing more and more with direct patient care. On the other hand formerly mainly clinically orientated specialties such as (pediatric) cardiology and cardiovascular surgery rely more and more on new imaging techniques. Technical and research achievements are implemented in very short time intervals, while new software upgrades and complete new analytic software tools for cardiac applications become available each three months. These rapid developments are difficult to track for busy clinicians. During the Netherlands Heart Days (NHD) new developments in cardiovascular medicine will be highlighted: basic aspects such as cardiovascular disease, acute coronary syndrome, valve diagnostics, heart failure and cardiovascular Post-Processing. After the success of the EPOS-session (Electronic Poster Session) last year, we will continue this session, in which radiologists, cardiologists and residents in these fields, can submit their abstracts. These will be selected either for Poster presentations or for a short oral presentation. If a resident’s poster has been selected for oral presentation, his/her conference fee will be waved. New this year is the Case-of-the –Day, in which two cases per day will presented on the EPOS-screens. Participants may answer several questions on these cases and thus compete for the NHD- Case-of –the-Day Award. This year on Saturday topics will be addressed concerning interactions between radiologists and cardiologists in the Caribbean and on cardiac developments in the Caribbean. From many other perspectives the organizers decided five years ago to start an annual course in Curaçao, the Netherlands-Antilles. The goal was, and still is, to establish a remote medical platform, on which medical doctors can orient themselves on new developments in cardiovascular diagnosis and treatment, together with updates on state of the art cardiac courses addressing the full scope of the many aspects of cardiovascular care. This in an optimal interdisciplinary format in which interactions between colleagues can occur at a very low threshold. We hope to welcome you in Curaçao in January 2010 ! Prof. Dr. M. Oudkerk |  |
