Today’s goal was to find out who’s at risk and how can we diagnose heart disease?
The day started with a lecture about cardiovascular risk factors and prevention from the perspective of general practitioner Drs. ter Berg, and also Dr. Smeijers from Amgen indicating PCSK-9 inhibitor drugs (evolocumab) could prevent heart attacks and stroke by dramatically lowering LDL cholesterol levels. We also followed interesting lectures from Dr. Nijveldt on Cardiac MR imaging and Dr. van Dijk about Echocardiography, two main diagnostic tools to diagnose heart disease.
The practical session was saved for the end of the day. After an introduction of innovations in echocardiography from Philips’ application specialist in cardiac ultrasound, dr. van der Voort, we got the chance to practice in groups of 6 with an echocardiography of Philips. Students were very active and eager to figure out how to get the best images from the heart.
At night, most students went out for a dinner at the Waagh and watched the match between Belgium and France at café Samson. While most of us supported Belgium, we saw what happened to the happiness of our Belgium students.