Fellowship

Two-Week Personal Fellowship “Cardiac CT”

As a special service, we are offering our two-week fellowship at the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Mitte.

By taking part in this fellowship, you will have an opportunity to work on your own workstation on a minimum of 100 real cases and thereby learn how to interpret and report cardiac CT findings or to deepen and strengthen your skills in cardiac CT.

The cases are presented to you in the form of case reports with all clinical information and prior noninvasive test results and you will also have an opportunity to compare your report with the results of cardiac catheterization.

In addition, you will have a personal advisor (one-to-one support), who will help you with any questions or problems you may have.

You will also take part in live patient examinations.

The dates of your fellowship can be arranged to suit you.

The cost of the two-week personal fellowship is €3,250.

REPORT ON MY EXPERIENCE WITH AN ADVANCED TRAINING COURSE

AT THE CHARITÉ IN BERLIN FROM MARCH 14 – 25, 2011

Field: Noninvasive CT Coronary Angiography

Before my two-week cardiac CT training at the Charité I had six months of experience with noninvasive CT coronary angiography from being involved in performing these examinations in our practice. And I had already attended a weekend course at the Charité providing a theoretical and practical introduction to coronary CTA.

When starting to perform cardiac CT scans, one soon meets the limits of reliably conducting the examination and accurately evaluating the coronary arteries. This was my motivation for doing the training at the Department of Radiology of the Charité.

During the 2-week fellowship, I worked through 100 cases of coronary heart disease on a Vitrea workstation. I could use the workstation – with interruptions – for eight to ten hours every day. The basic concept of the fellowship is to first learn to use the most recent cardiac analysis software and to then work on patient cases, viewing the images and establishing a diagnosis.

At the beginning of my fellowship, Mr Stenzel, a competent doctoral candidate of the department, was available all day to provide the necessary assistance so I could familiarize myself with the topic and to help me overcome the initial difficulties that one encounters when using a new software tool for the first time.

I could then check my interpretation against the available reports and finally verify my findings by comparing them with the results of cardiac catheterization. 

During my two-week fellowship, I was involved in cardiac CT examinations every day including patient preparation, conduct of CT scans, and analysis of images.

In this way the theoretical part of my training was supplemented by practical experience, allowing me to learn how to perform cardiac CT examinations. Dr. Rief was responsible for performing the noninvasive coronary CT angiographies. In some patients, the CT scan was followed by cardiac catheterization, which I was allowed to attend.

The fellowship was structured systematically, and I learned the potential and limitations of the complex field of noninvasive CT coronary angiography. The two-week course significantly expanded my knowledge and practical skills.

I was excellently taken care of by Mr Rief, Mr Stenzel, and Ms Kranz. Thank you very much also to Ms Germershausen for her efficient and attentive support.

Dr. Christian Gospos