Famous cardiac surgeons visited the Heart Center as part of the Anniversary Conference

This year on October 12, the Heart Center, one of the foremost medical centers in Central Asia, celebrated its 10th anniversary. As part of the celebration of this significant date, the team of the clinic and the Heart Center Fund organized the Anniversary Conference “Heart Center 10 years: Looking back, thinking forwards”.

This conference became a platform for doctors from all over the world: the participants had an excellent opportunity to share valuable experience and discuss the latest scientific achievements in the field of diagnostics and treatment of heart diseases. More than 700 specialists participated in this event: some were able to attend offline sessions, others connected to the online broadcast of the lectures.

The Heart Center invited famous doctors from all over the world, many of whom stood at the origins of the Center’s formation, participated in complex surgeries, which were first performed in Kazakhstan or Central Asian countries. For example, the renowned cardiac surgeon Jan Pirk, who participated in the first donor heart transplant in Kazakhstan in 2012, became a guest speaker. Since that time, 83 more operations were done at the Heart Center, and our clinic is the only one in Central Asia where the heart transplant is performed.

“I remember the day I called Dr. Pirk in the Czech Republic,” recalls the Director of surgery and research, Yuriy Pya, about the first transplant. – Then we learned that the donor’s relatives gave their consent to the post-mortem donation of the heart. It was necessary to urgently carry out a transplant, for which the presence of Dr. Pirk was necessary. He was just completing the surgery in his clinic, after which he took off on the first flight to Astana”. It was August 8, 2012: then the doctors of our Center, together with Dr. Pirk, made an important step in the development of transplantology of Kazakhstan.

The conference is also attended by other colleagues who supported our Center, trained our doctors, and contributed to the development of medicine in Kazakhstan:

• Jan Pirk – MD, PhD, Professor, Head of the IKEM Cardiology Center.
• Kestutis Rucinskas – MD, PhD, Head of Cardiac Surgery at Santaros Klinikos University Hospital.
• Sergey Dzemeshkevich – Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor, Chief Researcher of the Department of Surgical Treatment of Myocardial Dysfunctions and Heart Failure of the Federal State Budgetary Scientific Institution “Russian Scientific Center of Surgery named after acad. B.V. Petrovsky “.
• Fred Kusumoto – MD, Director of Heart Rhythm Services, Mayo Clinic.
• Salim Aziz – MD, FACS, Clinical Professor, Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, George Washington University Hospital.
• Robertas Samalavicius – MD, Professor, Head of the Anesthesia Department at Vilnius University Hospital Santaros Klinikos.

The conference will last for 2 days, October 21 and 22, in a hybrid format: participants attend lectures held in our Center and are connected to the online broadcast on the official website nrcsc.online.

The conference consists of a series of lectures and discussions on current directions of diagnostics and treatment of heart diseases, on the accessibility of the health care, as well as on COVID-19 and post-COVID syndrome.

Also on October 22, 2021, as part of the conference, the Heart Center Foundation will officially open the “Gift” installation. The art object is installed on the territory of the Botanical Garden in Nur-Sultan city. The installation was designed by Kazakhstani artist Eduard Kazaryan. The “Gift” will become a symbol of gratitude to donors, whose hearts have given a chance for a new life.

“The idea of creating an installation that would become the embodiment of a priceless post-mortem gift has been discussed for many years. Finally, this opportunity presented itself, and the Heart Center Fund took over the full implementation of this project, and the Jusan Invest provided financial support for the installation process. At the same time, every person who made donations to our fund at least once contributed to the creation of the “Gift”,” the Fund said.

This conference would not have been possible without the support of Heart Center partners, namely:
• “Abbott” Company, the General Partner of the conference.
• “Apex C” company.
• “Bayer” International concern.
• “Meril Life Sciences” company.
• “Dives” company.
• “Janssen” company.
• “ProBuono” company
• “Octapharma” company.
• “UNICMED ASIA” company.
• “Medtronic” Company.
• “ABMG expert” Company.
• “B. Braun” Company.
• “Meda” Company.