Colleagues,
Firstly we hope this message finds you and your families well in these most
troubling times. As you will have heard, PICS 2020 has transitioned to a
live online meeting due to the SARS-Cov-2 pandemic. We have been working
extremely hard to ensure the meeting is as stimulating and educational as
ever. We have shortened the meeting to three days, however we have live
cases from 6 international sites, with taped cases from another 6
international sites as well as live online lectures and debates, breakout
sessions, abstract presentations and online exhibits. We plan to transmit
the meeting live and have worked tirelessly to ensure the format and
transmissions will be as good quality and as captivating as any live
television event!
The meeting will start on Friday 11th September with live cases from Dublin
and New York. We will have taped cases from the Mayo Clinic and New Orleans
followed by a session on Fetal Interventions with world
renowned experts giving us their insights on appropriate approaches now and
in the future. Afternoon sessions include " Dealing with Complications" with a presentation by Dr
Albert Wu from Johns Hopkins on managing our own trauma through
catastrophic events in the Cath Lab as well as "Complex Issues Surrounding Septal Defect Closure". The
final session of the afternoon is the Oral Abstract
presentation session with over 20 oral presentations across two different
rooms.
On Saturday September 12th, we will have live cases from London and
Columbus, Ohio. There will be taped cases from San Diego and CHOP with a
morning session on Evolving Interventional Technologies.
Afternoon sessions will include "Advances in Imaging and CFD" as part of our collaboration
with 3Di3 with a simultaneous session for early career interventionists
through the PICES Breakout Session. In the later
afternoon, there is a breakout session for Nursing and Associated Professionals with a thought
provoking session on I nterventions on Low Birth Weight Infants finishing with a
debate on how best to manage a 1.7kg infant with symptomatic tetralogy of
Fallot!
On Sunday 13th September, we will have live cases from Memphis and Doha
with taped cases from Dallas and Boston. There will be morning session on Interventional Cardiac MRI. In the afternoon we will have
sessions focusing onStructural and Adult Congenital Interventions andLymphatic Interventions as well as breakouts onApproaches for Venous Stenosesand Occlusion and M y Best and Worst Interventions.
Of course there will be challenges this year. We won't be able to host the
annual 5K run but we encourage participants to post pictures on the meeting
platform of their own efforts to exercise during the meeting. We will
announce the PICS Young Leadership Award and the Charlie Kleinman
Scientific Scholarship Award just before the meeting. Unfortunately we
can't facilitate the Terry King Traveling Fellowship Award this year. We
will however have Posters displayed online during the meeting on a special
Poster Board link. We will also have some time for Industry Sponsored
Symposia which will add meaningfully to the meeting content.
It is frustrating that we can't all meet to learn from each other in person
this year but we can still learn from each other to ensure our patients
continue to receive the best care we have to give. We encourage you to
engage fully with our Live Online Meeting and we will have platforms for
ongoing discussion and debate amongst participants, with access to
international experts for challenging case discussions.
We look forward to interacting with you in September and of course seeing
you very soon!
Damien Kenny and Ziyad M Hijazi on behalf of the Course Directors and
Co-Directors
