Neil J. Weissman, MD, FASE

What do you use to help you stay up-to-date and aid your ongoing education? For me, it was all about textbooks. I proudly have many of my college and medical school textbooks on the shelves in my office, all marked up with a yellow highlighter and notes in the columns. For my son, it’s online material accessed through his computer and iPad. I walked into his room this weekend while he was working on a science project asking “Siri” a series of questions. Boy, the world of education is changing fast!

Well, as you know, the field of echocardiography is also developing at a breathtaking pace. As an organization which welcomes all echocardiography practitioners in all clinical settings, we consciously work to develop the tools which will ensure we are providing our members with excellent educational opportunities. In addition to our popular live course portfolio and our online education at ASEUniversity, our Education Committee, currently Chaired by Judy Hung, MD, FASE from MGH, also works hard to develop educational products to meet your needs. I’m particularly excited that our newest crop of products represents a wide variety of practice settings, reflecting the changing complexion of our vibrant organization.

One of our most ambitious projects, and one that the Society will be particularly proud of, has culminated in the publication of our new textbook, “ASE’s Comprehensive Echocardiography, 2 ^nd Edition.” The contributor list is a who’s who of echocardiography and was edited by Roberto Lang, MD, FASE; Steven Goldstein, MD; Itzhak Kronzon, MD, FASE; Bijoy Khandheria, MD, FASE; and Victor Mor-Avi, PhD, FASE. What I love the most about ASE’s textbook is a unique multimedia resource with text, case studies, and online components covering the latest uses of echocardiography, including the most recent two-dimensional and three-dimensional advances. This means the “textbook” will have appeal to learners in my generation and my son’s! This book has over 200 chapters that include essential material in a succinct format. It has everything you need to assess cardiac anatomy and function and obtain clinically useful, noninvasive information for more accurate diagnosis and evaluation of heart disease. Included with the book is an online version and an outstanding online library of slides and videos of case presentations that correspond to crisp, full-color images, allowing you to view dynamic echocardiographic clips of various cardiac pathologies.

ASE President-Elect Susan E. Wiegers, MD, FASE, from Temple University in Philadelphia, helped design and develop our new “Essentials for Proficiency in Basic Cardiovascular Ultrasound” as a way for fellows and other early echocardiography learners to acquire the basics of echocardiography. This DVD is also accompanied by a book. It covers it all from the mitral and aortic valves to prostheses. Each lecture has been carefully crafted to include a thorough review of practical concepts, references to ASE’s Guidelines and Standards, video examples of normal and abnormal echocardiograms, and case studies designed to provide real-word examples. After completing this self-guided DVD, the user should have an excellent overview of the fundamentals.

Perioperative echocardiography and its use in valve replacement is a growing and important evolution of the practice. In order to help meet the needs of our members as the field advances, “Perioperative Cases in Transesophageal Echocardiography” was designed as an educational tool for anesthesiologists and cardiologists who are doing transesophageal echocardiography for intraoperative procedures. The DVD provides images before, in, and after the operating room and includes a focus on ventricular function, the aorta, valves, and intraoperative uses for transesophageal echocardiography outside of monitoring and emergency diagnosis. Madhav Swaminathan, MD, FASE, Clinical Director of Cardiothoracic Anesthesiology at Duke University and the 2015 Feigenbaum Lecturer, chaired this unique product.

A critical part of ASE’s mission is to ensure quality practice for improved patient care. We are currently creating a new DVD, “Proper Echocardiographic Measurements: How and Why” with the goal of instructing new users on best practices for quality diagnostic exams that do not need to be repeated. There is an emphasis on defining and explaining ASE guidelines, including the new chamber quantification (left and right heart), diastolic function, and valvular assessment. The DVD focuses on the methods used to obtain the correct measurements and why we use these methods, not how the findings change with disease. This effort was chaired by Andrew Pellett, PhD, FASE, who is the Program Director of Noninvasive Cardiovascular Technology at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center. This should be available later in 2015.

Finally, we are always looking for ways to make obtaining and reporting CME credits easy for our members. We are proud to have released our 3 ^rd Self-Study DVD. This program consists of lectures on a variety of topics including carotid disease management, echocardiography in mechanical support devices, cardiac sources of emboli, three-dimensional echocardiography, congenital heart disease, and more. In addition, there are reviews of several ASE guidelines including lectures on the assessment of native and prosthetic valvular heart disease, imaging of patients with pericardial disease, and transcatheter interventions for valvular heart disease. After completing the DVD at your own pace, the user may earn 15.5 AMA PRA Category 1 CME Credits ™.

One of the many benefits of being an ASE member is the significant discounts you receive when you purchase ASE products. Many of the initiatives above came from member ideas, requests, and surveys. We would love to hear your ideas and opinions about ASE products, so let’s keep the two-way conversation going—please share your thoughts with me at www.president@asecho.org .