Department of Anesthesiology Hosts F.A.T.E. Course
On January 20th and 21st, the Department of Anesthesiology here at Columbia University Medical Center hosted the Focus Assessed Transthroacic Echocardiography Course (F.A.T.E.) at the Margaret Wood Center for Simulation and Education. Focused transthoracic Echocardiography has become an integral tool for acute care practitioners offering earlier and more accurate diagnostic information about their patients and hence has a significant impact on patient care and possibly outcome. This two-day course featured a Basic and Advance course for both the novice or the more seasoned health care provider. The F.A.T.E. Course focuses on extensive hands-on training of ultrasound imaging and is accompanied by comprehensive e-learning modules.
The Department of Anesthesiology has been teaching point of care ultrasound for more than 10 years in the field of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine. In collaboration with the Ultrasound Airway Breathing Circulation Dolor (USabcd), the Department of Anesthesiology offered the FATE course developed by Professor Eric Sloth from Denmark. The FATE course has gained an excellent reputation nationally and internationally and USabcd is now one of the leaders in the field of point of care echocardiography teaching. The participants were awarded the widely recognized basic and advanced FATE certificate after successful completion. The two-day course was open to physicians, nurse practitioners and physician assistants of all specialties within our CUMC community and beyond. The workshop provided a simple and effective roadmap to learn how to perform and interpret echocardiographic findings and put them into clinical context.
The CUMC Ultrasound faculty from the department of anesthesiology organized and taught both courses and was joined by Dr. Johan Heiberg, MD, of the Department Anesthesiology and Intensive Care at Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark, as a guest lecturer for the advanced FATE course. The basic course teaches the most fundamental skills like image acquisition, identification of normal and abnormal anatomy and visual evaluation of obvious pathology and cardiac function. These skillsets are the most important for the vast majority of general practitioners and at the same time builds the fundament for more sophisticated ultrasound examinations.
Dr. Heiberg explained that the advanced course introduces participants to extended two-dimensional imaging, basic Doppler ultrasound principals, and advanced Doppler ultrasound for pressure estimation, cardiac output estimation and assessment of diastolic function. “The participants benefit from a full day of hands-on training since the theory is learned online. That makes the course very interactive, which enhances the learning process,” Heiberg explained.
For more information on the USabcd and the FATE course, please visit their website. For more information on the Margaret Wood Center for Simulation and Education, please visit the Department of Anesthesiology website.