A Traditional Event in New Light…
Cardiovascular diseases are one of the leading causes of death globally. In Bulgaria, two out of three people die from a cardiovascular disease. Numerous factors contribute to this, but the main ones are an unhealthy lifestyle and the fact that people neglect to take care of their body and don’t find diseases on time.
Additionally, in Bulgaria the quality of non-invasive functional diagnostics of patients with CVD has decreased over the past few years. Although there are many courses that certify echocardiologists, there is a lack of an in-depth practical education in the field.
One of the main jobs of the Foundation of Cardiovascular Imaging, founded in 2015, and its successor, the Bulgarian Association of Cardiovascular Imaging, is to bring cardiovascular imaging in Bulgaria to a world-class level and apply it to the treatment of patients. They aim to achieve this through specialized courses, seminars, scientific research, publications, and innovations from the country and abroad.
Congress Management and Events Ltd., a leading partner of the Foundation in organizing high quality events, for another year in a row supported the organization of Echocardiography Days – Sofia.
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The event was postponed in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the uncertainty of the situation. That’s why the 2021 edition of the event kept its former title, Sofia 2020, as well as its theme and the main lecturers.
The challenge was the new format of the event. We had to transform it into a hybrid one due to the restrictions imposed because of the pandemic.
To overcome this challenge, we applied flexible technical solutions and put a lot of effort into the organizational work preceding the event and on the site. Thus, we were able to provide an intensive, helpful, and pleasant experience for all participants, both live and online.
Thank you for the wonderful organization and continuous support. I have really appreciated your help in making my participation in the Echocardiography days Sofia 2020 an enjoyable experience. Everything was well organized and on time.
Luigi P. Badano, MD, PhD
An extremely emotional moment during the event was the short video projected in honor of the Bulgarian doctors and medical workers who had died because of Covid-19.
Traditionally, a key feature of the program was the candle light session gathering young specialists from around the country (15 in total) to present curious clinical cases from their practice. The participants in the contest were very excited and were rehearsing and making changes in their presentations until the last minute.
To make the session even more special and to enhance the participants’ experience, we gave the event a romantic touch with the details. Romanticism is a movement praising the individual accomplishments and creativity and oriented towards a historic and natural inevitability in the presentation of ideas. In our case, romanticism symbolized the courage of the young specialists to overcome their professional challenges.
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The foundation, supported by the firm Gedeon Richter, gave out four awards: a special award in the name of prof. Maurizio Galderisi, in the amount of 1000 euro, first prize: participation in the European Echocardiography Congress in 2021, second prize: 5-day educational course in an elite echocardiology laboratory, and third prize: a student book.
The event ended on June 6 /Sunday/ with a professional educational module on 3D cardiology, led by doc. Krasimira Hristova /on-site in Hilton Hotel/ and prof. Luigi Paolo Badano /online/.
On-site participants had the opportunity to practice their skills on the specially installed laptops with EchoPac workstations – LV, LA, RA. The technologies, the organizers’ skills, and the professional experience of the hosts transformed the course into a highly helpful and relevant event:
““Continuing the tradition each year to gather world-class lecturers passing their knowledge onto future generations.”
Dr. Savka Vaklyova
