Certainly with the continued improvements in ultrasound technology, we often know prior to cardiac catheterization if a patient has valvular dysfunction. We often know the degree of severity as well, since ultrasound can measure velocities, areas and pressures. Some of you may have wondered why there is a need to even perform right heart catheterizations or pullbacks anymore with the advances in ultrasound technology. There are many reasons, but let's consider a couple of common scenarios. Often a patient is diagnosed via ultrasound with severe enough regurgitation or stenosis to warrant surgi

I am continually searching for challenges and change, and am in the perfect place to fulfill both of these desires. The field of interventional cardiology became my career shortly after I graduated in 1978 from the radiologic technology program at St. Jude Hospital in Fullerton, California. With less than a month as a radiologic technologist (RT), I was hired at Presbyterian Intercommunity Hospital in Whittier, California as a cardiovascular technologist. Intrigued by the ability to work in both diagnostic and therapeutic cardiology, I was given the opportunity to learn in a new cardiovascular

Peripheral angiography can have a bleak reputation. There are people, myself included, who trudge towards the peripheral rooms with leaden steps. I step into these rooms with determination, doggedness and duty, but anticipation? Rarely. Cheerfulness? Right.

A group of people who work seamlessly through five heart caths spend the same amount of time stuttering through two peripheral cases. Solid working teams evaporate in the face of a two-hour PICC line placement. My effort here is to identify the barriers. I believe that in listing our frustrations, we begin to get a handle on this Medu