Ramachandra advanced perfusion conference 2024 (RAPCON2024), was held in Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research, Porur, Chennai. About 14 of our students of B.Sc. Cardio-Perfusion Technology had participated in the conference and workshop conducted during 6th & 7th December 2024. Overall, it was a very informative with regard to the perfusion strategies on different types of cases, which helped the students to learn many topics relevant to the clinical aspects.
The speakers who are surgeons and perfusionist from various centres shared their knowledge on perfusion strategies with different clinical aspects. Day 1 speakers were Mrs. THOYAJAKSHI, Chief Perfusionist, Gleneagles Health City, Chennai has shared her knowledge on the topic ECMO in lung transplantation. It was an informative session about lung transplantation procedure and hoe to maintain ECMO during such cases with the indication and contraindication along with patient selection criteria for ECMO. Mr. AZARUDEEN.S, Senior Perfusionist, Madras Medical Mission, Chennai talked on the topic monitoring and enhancing cardiovascular perfusion process which includes monitoring perfusion strategies for cardiovascular procedures.
Day 2 speakers were Ms. ASHWINI, Perfusionist, Apollo hospital, Chennai on the topic modified strategies during long ECMO run where she spoke about the longest ECMO patient in her centre and she also shared her work experience on mobile ECMO patients. Mr. N.P. JAYARAM, Cardiac Perfusionist, Institute of Heart Lung Transplantation and Mechanical Circulatory Support, MGM Healthcare, Chennai gave his lecture on the topic perfusion strategies and challenges during combined heart lung transplantation where he shared his work experience in heart and lung transplantation and hoe to manage challenges in these complicated procedures. Dr. RICHARD SALDHANA, Director – Adult Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery, MIOT international Hospitals, Chennai explained the challenges for perfusionist and their future scopes. He gave a career guidance talk which was very helpful for the students and he also briefly explained the challenges that are faced by perfusionists. Mr. SENTHIL KUMAR DHANAKOTTI, Chief Perfusionist and Senior Manager – Operations, Apollo Hospitals, Bangalore delivered a talk on the topic autologous blood transfusion for MICS and robotic cardiac surgery. He gave a brief explanation regarding autologous blood transfusion which is a blood conservation technique, he also explained abouts minimally invasive cardiac surgery (MICS) and robotic surgery and its transfusion techniques for these kinds of surgeries.
Students enthusiastically participated in quiz competition, e- poster presentation and hands on workshop was conducted on various aspects of Perfusion Techniques. They learnt a lot of techniques which includes assembling, priming of both adult and paediatric CPB circuit and
they also learned suturing techniques, there were also informative stalls in the workshop which were IABP, ECMO, IMPELLA and CELL SAVER which helped them to gain knowledge on these machines which plays a major role in the field.
