Need of the hour: Structural heart intervention training for trainee surgeons in India.

Abstract

Cardiothoracic surgery is on the verge of undergoing a major metamorphosis from being a conventional surgical branch to a technologically powered specialty with plenty of emphasis on learning the minimally invasive techniques, and a step forward is the advent of interventional techniques to treat most of the major cardiac ailments. Though the world of interventions has been traditionally dominated by the physicians, it is time we surgeons get ourselves actively involved in learning and performing these interventional procedures to stay relevant. This is not an attempt to disrupt the physician-surgeon harmony but to nurture a symbiotic relationship between the two specialties for advancement in cardiac science and technological growth, ultimately to benefit the patient. In this article, we discuss the Indian and the global scenario of the role of surgeons in the interventional arena and various training modalities available for surgeons to learn the art of cardiac interventions. We tried to understand the impediments in implementing interventional training for surgeons and also propose certain amendments to the way the future cardiothoracic surgeons are trained.