Dr Benoy Shah delivered an interesting and fun talk at the Royal Society of Medicine’s ‘Advanced Imaging’ course today, in which he indirectly addressed a question previously discussed in this blog – is mild mitral regurgitation normal? He supported the argument made in the previous article on this topic in saying that closing jets – […]

Dr Sanjay Gupta is a consultant cardiologist who posts informative videos online about the heart, primarily to help patients (as opposed to students or fellow practitioners). His videos provide reassurance by improving people’s understanding of various conditions that they may have heard about or potentially suffer from. Dr Gupta recently created a video in which he […]

Transesophageal echocardiography (TOE) is considered the gold standard imaging modality for detection of thrombi in the left atrium and left atrial appendage. Multiplane images taken of the left atrial appendage (LAA) are particularly important. This is particularly important in patients due for cardioversion (for treatment of atrial fibrillation), yet there are still a significant number […]

Functional mitral regurgitation is a common complication of ischaemic heart disease. Echocardiography has already played a huge role in transforming patient management, as well as surgical practice. With continued technological advances, we expect to see an even closer relationship between surgeons and echocardiographers in the near future.

In a recent edition of ECHO, BSE President Rick Steeds discusses the key role the Society plays in upholding standards of echocardiography in the UK, but sees the BSE’s responsibility for addressing the skill shortage as one of “highlighting” the problem to other organisations – but not necessarily something the BSE can tackle directly. In the following article, we question whether the BSE itself could do more to tackle the growing problem.