Transforming a pre-existing MRI environment into an interventional cardiac MRI suite.

Aims: To illustrate the practical and technical challenges along with the safety aspects when performing MRI-guided electrophysiological procedures in a pre-existing diagnostic magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) environment.

Methods And Results: A dedicated, well-trained multidisciplinary interventional cardiac MRI team (iCMR team), consisting of electrophysiologists, imaging cardiologists, radiologists, anaesthesiologists, MRI physicists, electrophysiological (EP) and MRI technicians, biomedical engineers, and medical instrumentation technologists is a prerequisite for a safe and feasible implementation of CMR-guided electrophysiological procedures (iCMR) in a pre-existing MRI environment. A formal dry run "mock-up" to address the entire spectrum of technical, logistic, and safety issues was performed before obtaining final approval of the Board of Directors.

New training strategies for anaesthesia residents.

Purpose Of Review: This review intends to give an overview of developments in anaesthesia residency training.

Recent Findings: Healthcare institutions are stimulated to improve residency training programmes by worldwide quality assurance movements. Research and literature has increased the comprehension of which factors are needed to stimulate effective learning.

The clinical value of routine chest radiographs in the first 24 hours after cardiac surgery.

Background: Chest radiographs (CXRs) are obtained frequently in the intensive care unit (ICU). Whether these CXRs should be performed routinely or on clinical indication only is often debated. The aim of our study was to investigate the incidence and clinical significance of abnormalities found on routine postoperative CXRs in cardiac surgery patients and whether a restricted use of CXRs would influence the number of significant findings.

Acute type A aortic dissection complicating pregnancy at 32 weeks: surgical repair after cesarean section.

A 40-year-old, gravida 2, para 1 woman presented at a gestational age of 32 + 5 weeks' with sudden onset of a sharp chest and thoracic back pain. She was admitted 1 hour before the onset of pain because of some minor postcoital vaginal blood loss. Pregnancy was uneventful until 30 weeks of pregnancy when mild gestational diabetes was diagnosed.