This year SOLACI celebrated the 10th issue of ProEducar Fellow Course during SOLACI-SBHCI 2019 in Sao Paulo. The course was a roaring success: not only did we have record attendance, with 150 attending fellows, but we also benefited from the participation of notorious international interventionists ─ among others, doctors Stone, Grines, Granada, Hijazi, Abizaid, Mendiz, Lemos, and Leiva Pons ─ who generously shared their knowledge and experience before an eager young audience ready to learn and catch up on the latest developments in interventional cardiology.

Such unprecedented success demanded a scientific program of high scientific level for fellow interventionists and, at the same time, an attractive offer to match the extraordinary circumstance. That’s why this year we granted 4 full scholarships to attend SCAI Fall Fellow Course 2019 (December 06 to 10, 2019, in Las Vegas), a unique opportunity to strengthen the education of the new generation of interventional cardiologists.

Also the 3 winning case studies of this year were presented. In this context, Drs. Daniel Facundo Ferreyra (Argentina), Carlos Giuliani (Argentina), and Julia Kurtz Teixeira O’Donnell (Brazil) shared their interesting work with an audience of prominent Latin American colleagues.

August 1st started with high expectations in Río Tietê room at the Frei Caneca convention center in Sao Paulo. This was the first time the course has been done the first day of Congress. The first module was dedicated to Access Types and Diagnostic Tools. Several presentations stood out: Dr. Pedro Beraldo (Brazil) explained how to attain successful transradial access; Dr. José Luis Leiva Pons (Meico) analyzed percutaneous closing devices and explained when to use them; Dr. José Ribamar Costa (Brazil) performed a step by step demonstration on the adequate use of IVUS and optical coherence tomography (OCT); and Dr. Daniel Chamié (Brazil) addressed the tricks and secrets of iFR and FFR.

The second theme block was on complex coronary interventions. The interesting talks of Drs. Ari Mandil (Brazil), Carlos Uribe (Colombia) and Carlos Augusto de Magalhães (Brazil) were accompanied by the outstanding participation of Dr. Cindy Grines (USA) who talked about “Primary PCI and How to Optimize Its Outcomes”.

At noon, the prestigious panel gathered for a lunch session on how to prevent and solve TAVR complications, coronary PCI and abdominal aortic aneurysms. Drs. Dimytri Siqueira (Brazil), Pedro Lemos (Brazil) and Eduardo Kei (Brzsil) delivered interesting presentations supervised by Drs. Leandro Lasave (ProEducar-SOLACI Fellows Course Director), Gabriel Maluenda (ProEducar Director) and Juan Granada (CEO – Cardiovascular Research Foundation).

The third module, about Structural Cardiomyopathies, undoubtedly was the main attraction of the course, since it had the invaluable contribution of Drs. Gregg Stone (EEUU), Juan Granada (EEUU) and Ziyad Hijazi (EEUU), three international faculty that provided the finishing touch to an event of high scientific quality, in addition to the expertise of Dr Henrique Ribeiro (Brazil) with a step by step on how to perform a transcatheter aortic valve implantation.

The last course module, coordinated by Drs. Leandro Lasave and Ari Mandil, was about Non-Coronary Interventions. Drs. Oscar Méndiz (Argentina), Marcos Marino (Brazil) and Mauricio Cavalieri (Brazil) shared their knowledge on Abdominal Aortic Aneurysms, Carotid PCI and Infrapatellar Disease.

The cherry on top came by the end, after 50 participants responded the 30 multiple-choice quiz, when 4 scholarships for the SCAI Fall Fellow Course were awarded to the best performances. SOLACI takes the opportunity to congratulate the winners: Dr. Mateus Neves Romero, Dr. Carlos Giuliani, Dr. Jorge Isaac Quispe Cárdenas and Dr. Pablo Antileo. We hope you make the best of this opportunity!

Next year, ProEducar shall continue to strengthen their education program at SOLACI-CACI 2020 in Buenos Aires, but have no doubt the 10th issue of the Fellow Course that took place in Brazil will be in our minds for a long time.

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