[Aid to the development of medicine in the emerging world: myths and realities].

The diverse aspects of aid to development of medicine in the emerging world are discussed in the context of Switzerland, a non-colonial country. Emphasis is on the benefits of projects realised in the emerging countries, rather than the education of individuals coming to the developed countries.

Successful percutaneous septal alcohol ablation after surgical myectomy.

Hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy (HOCM) is a primary, usually familial and genetically fixed myocardial hypertrophy, with dynamic left ventricular outflow tract obstruction. An alternative to surgical myectomy in the treatment of severe, drug refractory, HOCM is percutaneous transluminal septal myocardial ablation (PTSMA). We report a case of 24 year old female patient who had the first septal myectomy but because of progression of her disease, the percutaneous treatment of hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy was performed.

The development of cardiac surgery in an emerging country: a completed project.

The necessity to develop cardiac surgery centers in the emerging world is widely accepted. Numerous groups and organizations from the developed world are involved in such work; however, the best method in which to develop a sustainable center in the emerging world is still debated. Herein, we present an approach that we have used in several such projects, which involves regular and frequent instructional visits with progressive reduction of our instructional support.

Capacity building in cardiac surgery in emerging countries: an overview.

Cardiac surgery in the developed world is advancing rapidly towards extremely expensive and time-consuming technologies such as robotic surgery, whereas, at the same time, access to life saving treatment by simple cardiac surgery is denied to many patients in the emerging world. This widening gap of access to technologies in distinct parts of the world has been eloquently described by one of the foremost US cardiac surgeons, Dr James Cox, in his presidential address to the American Association of Thoracic Surgery in San Diego in May 2001. Dr Cox demonstrated the startling figures shown in the table below and pleaded for involvement of surgeons from the developed world in capacity building in the emerging countries.