Hope rises for cardiovascular training in Nigeria

Cardiovascular care and training recorded a major feat in Nigeria as two Consultant Cardiologists who have been training as Interventional Cardiologist at Tristate Heart and Vascular Centre, Babcock University Teaching Hospital, made history when they solely performed cardiac catheterisation at the centre .

Cardiac catheterisation is a procedure to examine how well the heart is working. A thin, hollow tube called a catheter is inserted into a large blood vessel that leads to the heart. This is to enable the physician know if patients have disease of the heart muscle, valves or coronary (heart) arteries.

In a release signed by the Chief Operating Officer of Tristate Cardiovascular Associate (TCA), Dr Olukunle Iyanda, the duo of Dr Ifeoluwa Adewoye and Dr Mirabel Nwosu, both females, are being trained at the centre under the tutelage of the CEO of TCA/ Dean of the Department of Cardiology, Professor Kamar Adeleke for a year.

Having served as assistants in the previous procedures, they were given the opportunity to solely perform the procedure while Prof Adeleke observed.

Prof Adeleke, in the release,  said it was a dream come true since one of his aims of coming back to Nigeria is not only to provide advanced cardiovascular services, but also to strategically develop local capacity for the treatment of advanced cardiovascular related ailment in the country.

According to him, Nigeria despite its large population  has about four male Nigerian cardiovascular interventionist that were trained abroad.

He added “We are not enough yet to make our programme sustainable, we have to look inward. We have to be able to build our own capacity by building our own people. What the two doctors did today is very remarkable because in the US, you must have spent at least three years in the Cat lab before they will let you do this, and they have only been here for one year.

“I can say categorically that this is the fastest in history as regards the training in Interventional Cardiology procedure because I have trained people.”

He also stated, “In the United States, the government pay 100,000.00 dollars per trainee and having understudied the situation in Nigeria, the option is for the trainee to pay for it but we didn’t do that for now rather, Tristate and Babcock University decided to bear the burden of training and paying the trainee with the hope that when we finish training them, they would be part of us.

“To achieve this is tough. It takes a lot of courage, stamina, determination and the skill to know that you belong here. These ones are the senior for those that will be joining soon; our plan is to have four trainees every year until we have built enough capacity.”

The trained consultants had this to say after the session, “The experience was good. To have the procedure up to yourself is a good sign that we are advancing in our career even though by American standard, we are expected to perform 300 assisted procedures before we can start to perform this kind of procedure, without being supervised so that you will have gathered enough confidence to handle any challenges you may encounter when you start performing on your own.”