Archives for March 2024

The American Medical Association (AMA) Physician Practice Information (PPI) Survey is nearing completion (June 30), and we urgently need all selected physicians to actively engage in this effort.

Today an email was sent to 500 practices for the first time from ppisurvey@mathematica-mpr.com to join the survey. Mathematica, a well-regarded consulting firm, is helping the AMA run this survey. Your practice may receive an email and a USPS mail packet from Mathematica that contains a link to the survey as well as supporting information. We urge you to speak with your practice management colleagues to determine if they have received these communications and ask them to complete this important survey.

The intent of the survey, which has been endorsed by over 170 medical societies and other healthcare associations, is to collect updated and accurate data on practice costs which are key element of physician payment. These data have not been updated since last collected over 15 years ago. It is critically important to update these data to ensure accurate payment.

In the coming weeks or months, you may be asked to complete this two-minute survey. Help us help YOU to update Medicare physician payment.

Register now for ASE’s virtual 2024 ASCeXAM Review Course, which is specifically designed to help you gain the knowledge you need to pass the ASCeXAM exam administered by the National Board of Echocardiography, Inc. (NBE). ASE offers three registration options: 

1. Physician Registration
2. Fellow/Allied Health Registration
3. International Registration

Starting Monday, May 6, registrants will receive online access to all course content including, pre-recorded presentations, PDF slides, and voice recordings. This course is updated each year and contains new presentations.

Registration also includes a live component on Saturday, June 22, where course faculty will host two, two-hour question and answer sessions. The 2024 Review Course offers comprehensive echocardiography education that includes 28.75 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™. As a benefit of your ASE membership, you receive reduced registration rates. Log in to your Member Portal before registering in the ASE Learning Hub. 

The PCHD Microlessons is ASE’s newest online course on pediatric and congenital heart disease. The complete educational course will consist of a collection of Modules—each containing lectures, animated videos, questions, and case discussions on 10 original PCHD topics. Modules will be released quarterly throughout the year, and Module 1, which includes the topics below, is available now in the ASE Learning Hub:

• Fundamentals of Pediatric Echocardiography
• Imaging of D-Transportation of the Great Arteries (D-TGA)

The PCHD Microlessons are short web-based, micro-learning activities offering a quick and easy way to access targeted learning sessions. This module series was the brain child of the late Dr. Greg Tatum, a spectacular pediatric educator.

Course content is intended for all levels of learners but is primarily designed for sonography students, fellows-in-training, and early-career sonographers. Additionally, more advanced material is also available for early- and mid-career physicians and sonographers. Earn 3.0 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™ for completing Module 1. Remember to log in to the ASE Member Portal before purchasing to receive your member discount!

The latest issue of CASE is now available with intriguing reports, including “Mitral Regurgitation due to Entrapment of Cut Mitral Chordal Apparatus in a Bileaflet Disk Prosthesis” by Bansal & Rabkin. Editor-In-Chief Vincent L. Sorrell, MD, FASE, remarked, “The authors take the readers on a clinical tour of a 38-year-old man with endocarditis that will have many aspects similar to patients we see weekly in our hospitals. Transferred from another hospital to receive a higher level of care, the patient developed severe MR and heart failure requiring urgent valve surgery. Repair was not feasible, and the patient received a typical bileaflet mechanical mitral valve replacement (MVR). However, after coming off bypass circulation, the intraoperative TEE demonstrated severe MR of the brand-new MVR. The authors do a spectacular job of walking the readers through their discovery of this patient’s pathology – entrapment of some components of the subvalvular apparatus between the MVR housing and disk. Then, they further educate readers by providing a schematic representation of how to assess for valvular and paravalvular regurgitation after MVR. Their report includes 2D and 3D TEE examples as well as drawings and photographs to drive their messaging. I’m sure you will enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed helping prepare this for CASE.”

This issue presents two additional cases in the Valvular Heart Disease category, including a rare instance of a mitral valve-in-valve-in-valve procedure, and a report with a series of characteristic images of a disease that uniquely impacts the pulmonic and tricuspid valves. Authors in a Multimodality Imaging case submit a varied imaging approach to diagnose biventricular endomyocardial fibrosis complicated by coexisting chronic myeloid leukemia. Finally, a report for Veterinary Clinical Cardiovascular Medicine uses TTE, radiology, gross and histo-pathology to reveal the correlation between diagnostic imaging and pathology in a dog living with severe pulmonary hypertension. Dr. Sorrell’s editorial encourages readers to share their own echo insights through their social media platforms, as these platforms can serve as a valuable educational tool to teachers and learners alike.

Looking for a journal to submit your case report to? We want to hear from you! Email us with questions or submit your report today.

Submission Deadline: April 15

ASE member trainees are invited to apply for an ASEF 2024 Council Travel Grant to support their attendance at the ASE 2024 Scientific Sessions in Portland, Oregon.

These $1,000 USD grants are part of an ongoing effort by the Foundation and the Council Steering Committees to encourage trainees in cardiovascular specialties to focus on the respective echocardiography subspeciality and to recruit enthusiastic new members to ASE Councils. Additionally, grant recipients benefit from a deeper understanding of the imaging field and have the opportunity to develop meaningful mentoring relationships with established imaging faculty. Full application details are available here. The application closes April 15, 2024.

Join the ASE Foundation between March 17 – 23 for our Spring Giving fundraiser. Kick-start our 2024 Annual Appeal and help the next generation of cardiovascular ultrasound professionals bloom with a contribution to our Travel Grants and Scholarships initiative.

We set a goal to raise $5,000 and need your support. Every year, the ASE Foundation offers student, sonographer, and fellow travel grants and scholarships to support training and educational conference participation. Donations made to the Travel Grants and Scholarships initiative directly impact the number of scholarships and travel grants we are able to fund.

We hope you will plan to support ASEF and the next generation of our field March 17 – 23. Donations will be accepted online here and in the ASE Portal. If you donate in the Portal, make sure to allocate your contribution towards Travel Grants and Scholarships. Email Foundation@ASEcho.org to make an early pledge.

The CASE Special Issue on adult congenital heart disease (ACHD) is now available with over 30 high-quality reports, including “The Utility of Multimodality Imaging in a Patient with Ebstein Anomaly” by McClelland et al. Author Isla McClelland, MD, remarked, “Ebstein anomaly patients in the adult cardiology clinic present a unique challenge to providers as they can be repaired or unrepaired and can present with progressive symptoms after many years of feeling well.  Multimodality imaging gives providers the necessary tools to adequately follow and plan surgical intervention on these patients.  Our case report presents an example of how these imaging modalities all work in concert to provide a complete medical picture of a patient’s valve anatomy and associated lesions, without which an appropriate surgical plan cannot be created.”

Most children born with congenital heart disease live beyond 50 years of age, so there are more adults with congenital heart disease living today than there are children. However, data suggests that less than 10% of adults with CHD receive the recommended subspecialty cardiovascular care. CASE Editor-in-Chief Vincent L. Sorrell, MD, FASE noted, ““It’s difficult to isolate a single report from this special issue on ACHD that should be highlighted since they all provide unique educational value related to their selected congenital abnormality. I have learned over the years that no two patients with ACHD are exactly alike. Therefore, having CASE reports as teaching examples to expand your diagnostic acumen is critically important. Malone et al. do an exceptional job of providing Journal readers with a CASE series on patients with double-chambered right ventricles. If you work in a moderate sized echo lab, you have no doubt scanned a patient with this pathology. The important question, though, is did you recognize it for what it was? These authors give you 3 CASE examples which include the typical 2D and comprehensive Doppler TTE findings, but also include ECG, fluoroscopic ventriculography, cardiovascular MRI, cardiac computed tomography and even an intraoperative surgical photograph. Their CASE series should be read by everyone who performs echocardiography and wants to improve their skills on detecting the next patient with DCRV who comes through their lab.”

This special issue serves as an educational tool, compiling reports from the adult echocardiographic community to develop more expertise in understanding these complex diseases and post-operative complications, as well as how best to acquire the necessary comprehensive images to assist in diagnosis and management.

Advanced tomographic multimodality imaging (MMI) substantially contributes to the management of patients with CHD (ACHD), so the Multimodality Imaging category is quite robust with six reports, including a rare diagnosis of a unilateral absence of a pulmonary artery in an adult with recurrent bronchopneumonia. The Coronary Artery Disease category emphasizes the role that TEE offers in patients after a Ross procedure, highlights the development of coronary aneurysms after congenital heart surgery, and includes reports that highlight the careful imaging approaches taken to anomalous left and right coronary arteries originating from the pulmonary artery.

Since one of the most common CHD pathologies in the adult is a bicuspid aortic valve, Valvular Heart Disease is an important subsection, including an extraordinary report on an 80-year-old patient with undiagnosed L-TGA who presented for TAVI evaluation. Patients with CHD are encouraged to maintain a record of their medical and surgical history, so the Post-Operative Pathology section is included with reports on the complications that may arise in the adult after various corrective surgeries for D-TGA, Ebstein anomaly, and atrioventricular canal defect. The subsection titled Interventional Echocardiography contains reports on novel transcatheter approaches to treat a patient with a primum ASD, a ruptured sinus of Valsalva aneurysm, pulmonic stenosis, and a left SVC to LA fistula.

Just Another Day in the Echo Lab offers many imaging tips and tricks among its reports, including a case series on patients variably presenting with a double-chambered RV, two patients evaluated for arterial hypertension during pregnancy, and a patient with cor triatriatum. Veterinary Clinical Cardiovascular Medicine rounds out this issue with reports in which readers will see many commonalities between diagnostic assessment in humans and animals. In this issue’s editorial, Dr. Sorrell encourages readers to expand their differential diagnoses in adults to include both common and uncommon forms of congenital heart disease.

Looking for a journal to submit your case report to? We want to hear from you! Email us with questions or submit your report today. Be sure to check out the latest Sonographer Sound-Off and Unlock the CASE features on the CASE Homepage to view more extraordinary work from your colleagues.

Submit Your Ballot by March 24

Now is the time to select ASE’s 2024 Slate of Officers and Directors. Use this ballot to vote for the person nominated or write-in a nominee in the blank space provided. You can only vote for one person for each position, and any write-in nominees must be active ASE members. Your ballot must be received by March 24, 2024.

The new officers and directors will be introduced at the 35^th ASE Scientific Sessions during the State of ASE Presidential Address on Saturday, June 15. This session is open to all Scientific Sessions registrants and will be streamed live for virtual attendees.

In February, ASE welcomed 37 distinguished Fellows of the American Society of Echocardiography (FASE) recipients! These members exemplify excellence in the field of cardiovascular ultrasound through education, research, leadership, and volunteerism. They are ambassadors for ASE and recognized experts in their field. Join us in congratulating the newest FASE recipients: 

• Amanda M. Ball, PharmD, BCPS, BCCP, FASE
• Leighton Brady, FASE
• Nadine Deacy, BS, RDCS, RVT, FASE
• Mehran Ebadi-Tehrani, MD, FASE
• Benjamin Gerhardy, PhD, FASE
• Carson Homuth, RDCS, BS, FASE
• Olusegun Oladele Olusanya, MD, FASE
• Michekka C. Robinson, MBA, ACS, RDCS, FASE
• Shubha Deep Roy, MD, FACC, FASE, FSCAI
• Madhava T. Pally, MD, FASE
• Justin Nadeem Tawil, MD, FASE
• Kacy Taylor, MAH, RDCS, FASE
• Nathan Tehrani, MD, FASE
• Gabriel Altit, MD, MSc, FRCPC, FAAP, FASE
• Jennifer Chen, MD, FASE
• Oung Savly, MD, FASE
• Jacob Elliott Schaff, MD, FASE
• Xiu Tang, B.Sc, ACS, RDCS, FASE
• Bianca Judy Coelho, FASE
• Katharine Marie Belfrage, BS, RDCS, FASE
• Dayana S. Haro, BS, FASE
• Mitalee Patel, BS, RVT, RDCS, RDMS, FASE
• Divyanshu Mohananey, MD, FASE
• Wendy Tsang, MD, FASE
• Joel Dykstra, FASE
• Arif Albulushi, MD, FASE
• Josheau Scott Doucet, RDCS (AE,FE,PE), FASE
• Emma Bowcokc, MBBS, FASE
• Sean R. McMahon, MD, FASE
• Nasim Dana, BS, RCS, FASE
• Neda Dianati Maleki, MD, MSc, FACC, FASE
• James Michael Hodovan, PhD, RDCS, (AE,PE)
• Candice S. Vacher, FASE
• Danielle Gravlin, RDCS, FASE
• Muhammad Waheed Raja, MBBS, FASE
• Reinaldo Luis Pineiro, RCS, FASE
• Jamel Peter Ortoleva, MD, FASE

A complete list of FASE members can be found at SeeMyHeart.org. To apply for FASE, or learn more, visit ASEcho.org/FASE. The next deadline to apply is April 1, 2024.