SCAI President Sunil Rao on how the society is helping advance interventional cardiology
Society of Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI) President Sunil Rao, MD, who is also the director of interventional cardiology at NYU Langone Health, spoke with Cardiovascular Business at ACC.23 about some of the SCAI's biggest accomplishments over the last year. These included:
• Creation of early career research grants to help younger interventional cardiologists with research career development.
• Creation of an interventional cardiology fellowship match program to make the process more fair for applicants and programs.
• Launch of the SCAI Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Committee to advance diversity and inclusion core values of SCAI and to recruit more minorities into the subspecialty.
• Collaborating with several societies in developing key guidance documents in cardiology, including the recent ACC/AHA/SCAI Advanced Training Statement on Interventional Cardiology, and development of multiple SCAI-specific documents, including the SCAI Guidelines for the Management of Patent Foramen Ovale.
Fixing the unfair interventional cardiology trainee match system
Rao said the current interventional matching system requires applicants to interview at individual centers. However, he said some centers have what are known as "exploding offers," which expire after a very short time and do not give the applicant much time to consider their options.
"An applicant may have five interviews lined up, and the first program they interview at says, 'we want to offer you a spot and you have to accept it within 24 hours otherwise we are rescinding it.' That is really kind of unfair to the applicant, who does not get a chance to look at other programs to see if there is a better match," Rao explained.
Through a grass-roots effort, SCAI was able to get about 75% of interventional training programs in the country to participate in this new-look program.
SCAI advocated for the CAROL Act
Rao said the society was among those that advocated for the passage of the Cardiovascular Advances in Research and Opportunities Legacy (CAROL) Act. The act establishes an awareness program for sudden cardiac death and expands a national registry to gather more data on the condition. The legislation is named after sponsoring Congressman Andy Barr's's wife, Carol, who died of sudden cardiac arrest caused by mitral valve prolapse.
"This is a really important piece of legislation that will direct more funding toward out of hospital cardiac arrest, where SCAI has been very involved in that space," Rao said.
He said the act will help get more funding to research. Rao explained that out of hospital sudden cardiac arrest patients generally have very poor outcomes, so more awareness is needed to more quickly recognize the condition and try and get them help via CPR or an AED more quickly. Research also can help show what the best course of treatments are once a patient does arrive at the hospital.
In addition to these accomplishments, Rao said the society continue to be a big advocate in Washington to advocate for interventional cardiology in terms of Medicare funding. "On the governmental side, we have been really successful in helping stave off deep cuts to for reimbursements for interventional cardiology procedures," he said.
Dave Fornell has covered healthcare for more than 17 years, with a focus in cardiology and radiology. Fornell is a 5-time winner of a Jesse H. Neal Award, the most prestigious editorial honors in the field of specialized journalism. The wins included best technical content, best use of social media and best COVID-19 coverage. Fornell was also a three-time Neal finalist for best range of work by a single author. He produces more than 100 editorial videos each year, most of them interviews with key opinion leaders in medicine. He also writes technical articles, covers key trends, conducts video hospital site visits, and is very involved with social media. E-mail: dfornell@innovatehealthcare.com