Fall always means a sharp increase in the amount of invasive cardiology-related information, news, and reported research. It™s tough to travel to the many fall meetings on a regular basis (empties the budget fast), let alone follow the research that tumbles out daily. Some pf us resort to relying on the equivalent of sound bites, whether by scanning abstracts, checking out internet newsletter and website highlights, or even conversations with fellow professionals and physicians. (Of course, CLD is confident that our readers perform a thorough, end-to-end read of this publication each month. Then there are the ongoing, all-night discussions afterwards. Am I right?) This is truly the Information Age, and nowhere is it more evident than in the medical field, which bombards us with new knowledge almost constantly.

Declaring this the Information Age is all well and good, but ultimately, so what? How are we supposed to deal with all this information? I™m not exactly sure, but I think that most of us find the sources we trust, and do the best we can to keep up with them. That in itself is tough. Our own experience and knowledge level dictate our receptiveness to presentations of research, opinion, and fact. If information is not couched in ways we can recognize as useful, we may not pay any attention. Perhaps this is a good reason to occasionally read things that don™t look, on the surface, as relevant as we would hope you might be pleasantly surprised.

If you are curious about the very relevant topic of fractional flow reserve (FFR), we offer an article this month that satisfies and delights: Non-invasive Testing is Not Specific Enough: Why and How to Obtain Objective Signs of Ischemia in the Cath Lab, by Nico Pijls, MD. Jill Price, RN, continues the St. Croix Governor Juan F. Luis Hospital and Medical Center PowerPoint odyssey by sharing her lab™s own performance improvement review, in light of the fact that they currently have no on-site open heart surgical backup for their invasive procedures. CLD is also pleased to feature a cath lab from California, Sutter Medical Center“Sacramento (we hereby issue a call for more cath labs from the western half of the country to submit their labs for a spotlight). Enjoy!

Knowledge is the one thing no one can ever take from you.

Rebecca Kapur
Managing Editor
CathLabDigest@aol.com