CIRSE ESIR begins its education programme

One of the major roles of CIRSE is the dissemination of interventional radiology practice, which the society achieves through a great variety of educational sessions in the annual congress. However, the educational needs of interventional radiologists vary greatly from country to country, partly because of the varying levels of development of the discipline within Europe but also because of local factors that govern the dissemination of new procedures.

To address these issues CIRSE Foundation, through the European School of Interventional Radiology (ESIR), that seeks to provide training through intensive courses organised with local enthusiasts. The first courses were held in June this year and sought to provide both the fundamentals of IR clinical practice and state-of-the-art developments.

Educational Officer, Dr Tony Nicholson from Leeds, UK, told Interventional News, "The idea is to take basic and advanced interventional radiology teaching to those people who might not normally attend the CIRSE meeting. We are trying to aid the development of interventional radiology in places such as Eastern Europe and take advanced interventional radiology teaching to places where we do not get high attendances at CIRSE meetings. We are taking CIRSE to the people."

According to Nicholson the idea is to keep the courses patient-based and in the basic course concentrate on catheter and wire skills, "At its simplest we aim to teach how to gain access to an artery, a kidney or bile duct, before we start talking about more complex procedures such as chemoembolisation."

The first basic course was held in Lublin, Poland from June 23rd-24th and was a tremendous success. The format is small group teaching, with four experts and a local organiser at workstations with groups visiting each workstation. The basic course was attended by a variety of people from a mixture of specialties including radiologists, trainee vascular surgeons and others who want to start interventional radiology services. The Basic course was well attended with some 46 attendees, a figure Nicholson said was ideal. "These were exactly the numbers we were after as the course is essentially based on small group teaching, people asking questions, bringing their own cases. In such a situation you do not want big numbers."

The first advanced course was held in Kuopio, Finland, from June 16th-17th and was designed for interventional practitioners who have some experience of interventional radiology and who wish to progress to more complex interventions in increasingly challenging situations or who wish to update themselves in these techniques. "The advanced course dealt with aortic dissections, stopping haemorrhage, sub-intimal angioplasty and carotid stenting. It was very clinical and evidenced-based and was more about who to intervene on and when to intervene," said Nicholson.

Due to the more complex nature of the course, the structure was based around didactic lectures and small group teachings. It taught the more practical and clinical aspects of interventional radiology including the indication and planning for procedures. Again, the advanced course was well attended with nearly 32 specialists present.

The European School of Interventional Radiology is accredited by the European Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (EACCME) and a certificate of attendance was awarded out for participation in the entire course. There was also a voluntary test at the end of each course.

Following on from the success of the first courses there are already plans to hold similar courses next year. "The ESIR is a long-term project and the Foundation has asked that three courses are organised next year, plus two theoretical radiofrequency ablation (RFA) courses. One will be held in Crete and will be a non-vascular GI intervention course, and an advanced course will be held in Lublin. The two RFA courses will be held in Western Europe. We have not determined where the third course will be held, we will see what expressions of interest we get first," added Nicholson.

"My overwhelming feeling was that the Courses were hugely worthwhile. The feedback was very encouraging from the local organisers and attendees alike and I am looking forward to next year," he concluded.

The ESIR is grateful to William Cook Inc for generously supporting the first two courses and whose efforts have greatly benefited the further education of interventional radiologists in Europe.