The Mid-Atlantic Capital Cardiology Symposium took place Nov. 21, 2015 at ACC's Heart House in Washington, DC. The House was packed this year, with academicians, private practitioners and trainees from Washington, DC, Maryland, Virginia, Delaware and Pennsylvania. The day was filled with exciting educational sessions, research presentations and networking opportunities under the supervision of the director Michael A. Solomon, MD, FACC, chief of cardiology at the National Institutes of Health.

Learning left from right

This year's educational focus was on advanced HF, an important topic for today's cardiologist as the HF population continues to grow to epidemic proportions. There was special attention to the right ventricle and pulmonary circulation. Attendees had the opportunity to hear about the latest in pulmonary arterial hypertension diagnosis and treatment from Anjali Vaidya, MD, FACC, of the University of Pennsylvania, followed by a case-based talk on the management of severe right ventricular failure by Amresh Raina, MD, FACC, of Alleghany General Hospital. The educational sessions culminated with a lecture on advanced left HF by Clyde Yancy, MD, MACC, chief of cardiology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Dr. Yancy discussed the approach to patients at the various stages of HF, as well as use of novel therapies including LCZ696 or Entresto and ivabridine.

Women rocked the house

As a female FIT I was encouraged to see that several of the presenters at this year's meeting were women leaders. Dr. Vaidya gave the clinical presentation on pulmonary hypertension, while Mary Norine Walsh, MD, FACC, vice president of the ACC, discussed the importance of membership and the ACC as a professional home, encouraging attendees to participate and advocate for our profession and patients through the College. Garima Sharma, MBBS, FACC, moderated the Late Breaking Clinical Trials Session during which FITs presented recently released trial results including the NEAT and SPRINT trials. Additionally, Maryland Senator Shirley Nathan-Pulliam, a minority female nurse fighting the childhood obesity epidemic, was awarded the MD ACC Legislator of the Year Award.

FITs featured

The meeting was highly attended by FITs with several opportunities for FITs to feature their accomplishments, including the oral abstract presentations for the Young Investigator Award, poster session, Late Breaking Clinical Trial session and some friendly regional competition with FIT Jeopardy. Three teams, one from Maryland, one from Pennsylvania and one from Virginia, qualified to represent their states in the national ACC FIT Jeopardy competition at the 2016 annual meeting in Chicago. Trainees had the opportunity to interact with cardiologists from across the region during the poster sessions and throughout the meeting. New this year were labels "looking for a job" and "expanding practice," that attendees could add to their name badges to help break the ice and facilitate networking.

Stay tuned for next year's Mid-Atlantic Capital Cardiology Symposium on Nov. 19, 2016.

This article was authored by Nisha A. Gilotra, MD, a fellow in training (FIT) in advanced heart failure (HF) and transplant, PGY-7, at Johns Hopkins University in the division of cardiology.