A Siemens training center is enabling cardiologists-in-training to practice heart catheterization completely risk-free. The specialists learn coronary intervention techniques on a simulator, as the research magazine Pictures of the Future reports. Experts forecast that cardiologists in the future may be required to become licensed on a simulator before being permitted to perform certain types of catheter procedures. Today most young cardiologists gain their initial experience while actually operating on patients.

During the two-day course, offered by Siemens Medical Solutions in Forchheim near Nuremberg, experts pass on know-how to participants while giving instruction on coronary angioplasty, the reopening of congested or collapsed coronary blood vessels using a catheter. On the simulator, a doctor can navigate a guiding wire under conditions amazingly like those encountered in procedures conducted on patients. The simulation program, called “Cathi,” uses angiography to detect a narrowed coronary blood vessel on a dummy with simulated X-rays. The course participant then has to detect a clotted coronary blood vessel and choose the correct catheter material, before guiding the wire to the narrowed area under the guidance of an experienced cardiologist. The position and movement of the catheter within an artery or vein are calculated by a computer and realistically displayed on a monitor. The doctor can actually feel the rubbing of the wire inside the vessel and the beating of the “heart,” which makes the training especially realistic.

Course leaders can also simulate the use of a contrast medium and adjust the level of difficulty. During a virtual catheterization, for example, prospective cardiologists might suddenly find themselves facing a complication, such as an allergic reaction to the contrast medium. This enables course participants to learn the procedures they would need to use should they someday encounter difficulties during a real catheterization.