TAVI Surgery training at the Heart Center

As the pandemic has shown us, medicine should not stand still. And doctors should share valuable experience and help colleagues.

For example, earlier in the treatment of heart valve defects, an extensive surgery with the opening of the chest was a frequent choice. The operation itself and recovery after it is a very capacious and difficult process. Now there is a faster and more effective method – transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI). Therefore, our Center considers it important to share its knowledge and skills with colleagues from other medical centers.

Based on the Heart Center, an International Training Center for TAVI was opened, where teams of specialists are trained, who will then perform this operation in their hospitals. Such teams should consist of specialists from different fields:

•            interventional cardiologists,

•            cardiologists,

•            doctors of functional diagnostics,

•            radiologists,

•            cardiac surgeons,

•          anesthesiologists,

•            nursing specialists.

“We have been dealing with this problem since 2011-2012, so we have already accumulated valuable experience in conducting this operation,” says Abdurashid Musayev, head of the catheterization laboratory. – “For example, yesterday we performed the four hundredth operation. This is a huge experience that we want to share with our colleagues not only from Kazakhstan, but also from abroad. This is what led to the initiative to open a training center”

The training lasts for 2 days. First, our specialists conduct theoretical classes. After that, all training continues in the wet laboratory, where doctors learn how to assemble and disassemble the valve. This is an important stage of the operation, since during TAVI it is necessary to quickly and correctly prepare the valve for implantation. The second day of training is a practical day: doctors discuss clinical cases and participate in TAVI surgeries.

It was for this purpose that a delegation of doctors from 3 clinics in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, visited our Center on July 7-8, 2021. 9 doctors underwent two-day training, starting from theoretical knowledge and ending with participation in the operation.

According to Abdurashid Musayev, their training has just begun: “If a team of doctors wants to perform such operations at their medical center, then, first of all, they need to undergo this training. After that, the first operations will be performed in their medical center with the support of specialists with experience in operating using this technique. And only after that, this team of doctors will be able to perform TAVI surgeries independently.”

One of the important steps in the training process was the signing of a Memorandum on further cooperation of the Heart Center with the Republican Specialized Scientific and Practical Medical Center of Surgery named after Academician V. Vakhidov of the city of Tashkent, Uzbekistan. We hope that in the future we will be able to share our experience with even more colleagues in all areas of our Center.