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Babcock University produces first set of home-trained cardiovascular interventionists

By Stanley Akpunonu
23 March 2017   |   4:20 am
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...

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 Catheterization at the centre on Sunday.

Today, Dr. Ifeoluwa Adewoye and Dr. Mirabel Nwosu, represent the first set of Cardiovascular Interventionist, trained in Nigeria. Cardiac catheterization (cardiac cath or heart cath) 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 knows 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, have being training at the centre under the tutelage of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of TCA/ Dean of the department of Cardiology, Prof Kamar Adeleke for a year now having served as assistants in the previous procedures, they were given the opportunity to solely perform the procedure while Prof Adeleke observed.

According to the release, Adeleke said what took place at the centre is a dream come true since one of his major aims of coming back to Nigeria is not only to provide the advanced cardiovascular services that is so well needed but to also have a strategic development to train and develop local capacity, for the treatment of advanced cardiovascular related ailment in the country. In Nigeria, a country of over 180 million people there are only three or four Cardiovascular Interventionist who are Nigerians. These Interventionists trained in United States and Canada and amongst them, is no female. Adeleke said, “We are not enough yet to make our program 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 being here for one year, I can say categorically that this is 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.”

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