BRITISH CONGENITAL CARDIAC ASSOCIATION

Dr AG Stuart, Honorary Secretary, British Congenital Cardiac Association

Bristol Congenital Heart Unit, BristolRoyalHospital for Children, Upper Maudlin St., Bristol BS2 8BJ

Tel: 0117 342 8852 e mail:

17/9/06

BCCA Newsletter - Autumn 2006

Dear Colleagues,

Greetings from BCCA! I hope you have all had a relaxing Summer break and have enjoyed basking in glorious sunshine and British sporting success.

There is a lot happening in BCCA this autumn. In particular, the arrangements for the Annual Scientific meeting are being finalised.

1BCCA Annual Scientific Meeting, Bath 22nd –23rd November

Andy Tometzki has arranged a superb programme with sessions on isomerism, improving quality of care, pacing, sudden death, perioperative management and echocardiography. There will be lectures from visiting luminaries and exiles like Professors Norman Silverman and Andrew Redington as well as a UK based faculty. A Civic reception is being held on the evening of the 22nd November followed by a dinner and entertainment at the world famous Pump Rooms. The Dinner is Black Tie (not obligatory…but should be fun!), so dig out your posh frocks and kilts. Andy refuses to divulge the nature of the entertainment but drops heavy hints that “we will never forget it” and they have an “international reputation”. Personally, I’m hoping it is the Spice Girls.

If you are planning to come along, register on-line via the website . September 26th is the deadline for the early registration fee. The abstract deadline is also September 26th. There will be both poster presentation and spoken abstracts with prizes for each category. Please encourage trainees to submit their latest research. This section is open to both medics and non-medics and we would be delighted to have submissions from nurses/technicians.

On November 24th there are several interest groups / linked meetings being held in Bristol and Bath. These include;

  • Congenital MRI meeting

contact r details

  • Advances in Pulmonary Hypertension meeting

Sponsored by Actelion. Contact

2. Madeleine Steele Travel Fellowship

The 2007 Madeleine Steele travel fellowship applications are now open. The Madeleine Steel fellowship is an annual fellowship (£5000) awarded on a competitive basis to doctors (trainees and consultants) and allied professionals (including nurses, clinical physiologists etc) working in congenital heart disease in the United Kingdom. The award is used to enable the holder to travel to a centre of excellence in North America to gain further experience, learn a new technique or conduct research. Exceptionally, an application to a centre outside North America will be considered.

Can applicants send me details of their application on a single A4 sheet. This should include a description of what they propose to do, the anticipated costs and what the fellowship funds will be used for. Applications will be considered at the Spring 2007 meeting of the BCCA Council. The deadline for applications will be 31st January 2007.

  1. Cardiac Morphology Website -

All material from the Core Curriculum is now available on the Cardiac Morphology Website. Bob Anderson and Andrew Cook deserve our thanks for putting this together. This is a superb facility for distance learning and is open to all members of BCCA. A password for the site is needed. This can be obtained by visiting Cardiacmorphology.com and following the “Register for a password” links.

  1. Forthcoming meetings

The standard and range of the BCCA related scientific meetings is increasing every year. Recently, we have witnessed some excellent meetings on adult congenital heart disease (Birmingham), paediatric cardiology for Paediatricians (Exeter) and congenital heart disease for non-medical professionals (Southampton). I have been asked to draw your attention to the following meetings which may be of interest:

  • 5th Advanced Symposium in Adult Congenital Heart Disease, London

25th-27th September

Register at

This is the 5th advanced course in ACHD. There is an outstanding faculty and programme and a few places are still available.

  • Cardiac Disease in Pregnancy 20th November, London.

Details and registration on-line at

Meeting in the RoyalCollege of Gynaecologists. Overview to launch the RCOG recommendations for care of the cardiac patient during pregnancy.

  • Fetal Cardiology Meeting – Basic Course, 3rd November, London

Fetal Cardiology Meeting – Advanced Course, 30th November- 1st December

Details from Gurleen Sharland or Faith Stone at

Two courses in fetal cardiology from the world famous Guy’s unit.

  • Hands-on Cardiac Morphology course 24-26th July 2007

BromptonHospital, London. Details from

The next session of the highly successful Brompton morphology course with a practical “hands-on” emphasis.

  1. Membership Applications

Please consider if any of your colleagues would like to be considered for membership of the BCCA. I enclose an application form. We are open to any professionals who spend a substantial proportion of their time working with patients in the field of congenital heart disease. Our membership now includes a whole variety of specialists including basic scientists, pathologists, radiologists, adult cardiologists with a congenital heart interest and paediatricians with a cardiology subspecialty interest. We are also open to senior nurses, technicians, psychologists and others. Full details of the membership categories are available in our section on the British Cardiovascular Society Website. This is reached by accessing the BCCA section of the affiliated groups.

  1. Endocarditis and Tatooing

Endocarditis prophylaxis has been in the medical headlines recently and you should all have received an update from John Gibbs regarding the current position. In the meantime there has been another death from endocarditis following body piercing. The Sheffield Coroner has asked BCCA to remind members to mention body piercing as a “High risk” procedure when discussing endocarditis with patients. We should also include tattooing. It is of interest, however, to see this month’s Heart (Di Filippo et al Heart 2006;92:1490-95) that dental extraction remains the leading cause of endocarditis in patients with congenital heart disease.

I look forward to seeing as many as possible of you at the Annual Scientific meeting in Bath.

Finally, my commiserations to the brave English football team who didn’t quite make it to the World Cup final. Thank goodness for the teenage Scot, Andrew Murray, and his rise to tennis excellence with his first win over tennis world No. 1, Roger Federer!

With best wishes,

Graham Stuart