7/24/2018
Dear CARES Board Members,
At the outset, I would like to thank Dr.Jeffrey Goodman and other CARES board members for offering me the C.Thomas Peter mentorship.
I am extremely grateful to Dr.Thomas Peter who has always encouraged me to take up EP and has helped me for this menteeship. I am deeply thankful to him and consider myself very fortunate to be his student during his active life.
I arrived in Los Angeles on 17th June, practically without accommodation as my airbnb got cancelled at the last moment. However, Ms. Elaine and Mr.Lebowitz were kind enough and had arranged for my stay for the initial days. Fortunately, I was able to find a comfortable accommodation within the next couple of days.
I completed the orientation and the health check up under the guidance of Ms. Elaine Lebowitz who practically did all the work and made sure I faced no other difficulties.
I started the menteeship program from the 26th of June under Dr.Xunzhang Wang, whose academic and professional achievements are known worldwide and all my colleagues who were the previous beneficiary of this menteeship always had intense respect and praise for him. Despite his tight schedule, he was always willing to discuss all the cases and clear my doubts. He made sure that my time is not wasted and encouraged me to read more and discuss. I am pretty impressed with his new trial with ACUTUS which would give a lot of insight into our present understanding of the mechanism of atrial fibrillation. I am fortunate enough to learn about it as only 3 or 4 centres in US are presently working with it.
I had a friendly informal meeting with Dr.Chugh which went well and he wished me all the best and guided me to use this program in the most effective way.
Apart from Dr.Wang, I got acquainted with Dr.Swerdlow, Dr.Shehata, Dr.Ashkan and Dr.Singolani who were also very friendly and always willing to discuss and enlighten me.
I got along well with the EP fellows Dr.Mikhail, Dr.Michael and Dr.Ali. They always keep me informed of the various cath lab cases and the EP learning classes in the morning. Discussing the cases with them helped me to consolidate my EP knowledge.
The support staff in cath lab were also extremely friendly and accommodative, always ready to strike a conversation and make you feel at home.
The menteeship program has given me a great opportunity to improve my basic and advanced knowledge in EP and devices which should be of great benefit in my future clinical practice. I have been able to observe some of the cases which are not regularly done in India, like cryoballoon ablation, use of ICE for all the procedures, HIS bundle pacing, mapping with ACUTUS. I am fortunate to observe so many operators in a single place with all their individualized techniques, making it an unforgettable learning experience. The program has given me ample time to brush up my theory knowledge and read on all the latest journals. The CCEP curriculum which recently started goes a long way in helping me understand the subject from the basics.
Nothing of this would have been possible without the selfless, hard work of Ms.Elaine Lebowitz, who has taken all the pain to make sure that I benefit to the maximum from this menteeship program and take back rich memories of my experience in Cedars Sinai Medical center and Los Angeles.
I hope that the next few weeks will be even more enriching and rewarding.
With regards
Dr.Ramakrishna Kumar Sivakumar
