Heart Friends
Around The World and the School of
Cardiology.
 Next
week, from May 17 to 22, in San
Pellegrino Terme (Bergamo, Italy) at
the “Casa di Cura Dr. Quarenghi”
Cardiac Rehabilitation Center, the
School of Cardiology organized by
Heart Friends Around the World will
take place (www.hfatw.org). Dr.
Flavio Burgarella is the founder and
Executive Director of Heart Friends
Around the World.
The idea of the
scholarship was born in September
2009 in Abuja, Nigeria, during the
Pan African Congress of Cardiology.
In that occasion Dr. Burgarella
decided to provide an opportunity
for young African cardiologists to
"get experience" in Italy, with free
accommodation and participation for
the theoretical and practical
studies.
This idea started
without thinking of economic
coverage, as this aspect was
considered secondary to the need to
adequately train cardiologists
staff, to face the health emergency
that cardiovascular disease will
represent in the next years in
developing countries. In those
countries which lack of medicines
and medical structures, the
education to medical practitioners
should not miss. As Europeans, we
can and must give help for medical
education, to ensure that doctors do
not find themselves unprepared for
the treatment of diseases.
It’s never wrong
to trust in providence, so that the
Regional Council of Lombardy and the
Credito Bergamasco bank subsequently
sponsored the initiative, which was
also sponsored by the Province of
Bergamo and the Mountain Community
of the Brembana Valley.
The course will
consist of a theoretical part
supported by cardiologists,
hemodynamic specialists, cardiac
surgeons and vascular surgeons of
the “Ospedali Riuniti di Bergamo”
General Hospital, Bergamo, Italy,
coordinated by Dr. Antonello Gavazzi
with the help of Dr. Paolo Ferrazzi,
Dr. Orazio Valsecchi and Dr. Luigi
Aiazzi.
The practical
part will take place in the clinic
facility and nursing home gym of the
“Casa di Cura Dr. Quarenghi” Cardiac
Rehabilitation Center”, thanks to
the sensibility of the Board and of
Dr. Michelle Quarenghi, General
Director, and the collaboration of
cardiologists, nurses and
physiotherapists.
One goal of the
school, attended also by Dr. Walter
Locatelli, General Director of the
Sanitary District of Milan, is the
training for the establishment of
health centers dedicated to the
rehabilitation and prevention of
heart disease in Africa. The new
centers will then be assisted in
their establishment and development
by Heart Friends Around the World.
The participants,
who personally paid the cost of air
travel (although this was quite
unthinkable at the beginning of the
proposal, given their national
economy), will be received at the
airports of Milan - Malpensa and
Milan - Orio al Serio by the Alpine
Group of the Brembana Valley, thanks
to Mr. Angelo Bonzi. The will be
then carried to the Central Hotel in
San Pellegrino Terme, where they
will have the accommodation. In the
following days the young
cardiologists will also have the
opportunity to visit the Division of
Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery of
the “Ospedali Riuniti di Bergamo”
General Hospital, to visit the
headquarter of the Province of
Bergamo, thanks to the Councillor
Fausto Carrara, and to visit the
village of Bianzano, thanks to the
interest of the Mayor Marilena
Vitali. In Bianzano and Spinone al
Lago, along the health training path
located in the Burgarella Farm,
students will be taught on how to
practically implement in their
nations specific training paths for
cardiac rehabilitation.
Students of the
International Heart School of
Bergamo, founded by Prof. Lucio
Parenzan who will attend as a
speaker at the event, will join the
theoretical and practical lessons.
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Heart Friends
Around The World and the School of Cardiology.
 It
has concluded in San Pellegrino, Bergamo, Italy, at the
“Casa di Cura Dr. Quarenghi” Cardiac Rehabilitation Center,
the School of Cardiology organized by Heart Friends Around
the World and its founder and Executive Director, Dr. Flavio
Burgarella, Head of the Department of Cardiological
Rehabilitation.
A full immersion
week, with meetings and lectures held by directors and
assistants of the Departments of Cardiology, Hemodynamics,
Cardiac Surgery, Nuclear Medicine and Vascular Surgery of
the “Ospedali Riuniti di Bergamo” General Hospital.
The scholarship
was attended by eight young African cardiologists, including
Dr. Bola Ojo, current Executive Director of the African
Heart Network, which includes all the cardiac foundations
and associations from Africa.
The practical
part, with demonstrative meeting in the gym of the Cardiac
Rehabilitation Center, was conducted by doctors and
physiotherapists of the Center. The aim of the course was
the training of African cardiologists in prevention,
treatment and rehabilitation of cardiovascular diseases.
These health issues are emerging and increasing dramatically
in developing countries, due to the lack of diagnostic
equipment and medicines.
The School has
also proposed a model for arterial vascular rehabilitation
of the lower limbs developed by Dr. Giuliano Brighenti and a
model of rehabilitation and prevention of heart disease
developed by Dr. Burgarella for African countries and for
developing countries. This cardiac rehabilitation model is
performed "outside hospital ", requiring only the presence
of the cardiologist who already works within the hospital,
together with a device for measuring blood pressure and an
ECG for an electrocardiogram at rest, nothing else. After
the cardiological evaluation performed by the walking test,
during which the physician and the patient walk together
for six-minute at medium-fast pitch in the yard, along the
road or in the fields "outside" the hospital, they return in
the medical center and repeat the electrocardiogram. If this
is similar to the one taken before the walking test and if
the patient did not have pain, fatigue, paleness, or
shortness of breath, the patient can begin his/her
rehabilitation in safety levels.
The training will
consist in walking for about half an hour, every day, along
a path specifically created in the streets and fields
surrounding the hospital. There may be an overseer, chosen
among volunteers and patients who already have overcome the
disease, so that the patient could talk with him/her about
prevention, for example about the heart damage due to
smoking, high blood pressure, the consumption of unhealthy
aliments, obesity.
In this way, cells
for cardiac rehabilitation and prevention will be
constituted at cost close to zero. This model can then be
extended to all the hospitals of each country, with benefits
not easily imaginable, considering the published data of a
meta-analysis which shows that the simple practice of
physical training after a heart attack reduces
cardiovascular mortality by 25%.
The African
cardiologists have accepted the proposal and brought their
data to the Pan African Congress of Cardiology that will be
held in Kampala, Uganda, in September 2011. Dr. Burgarella
will attend the World Congress of Cardiology that will take
place next June in Beijing, China; at the stand of Heart
Friends Around the World, Dr. Burgarella will present the
initiative and video recording of the School, made from the
friend Adriano Avogadro. |
