Our annual holiday meeting has traditionally been our most attended and fun, and this year marked the return of an in-person event after two years of virtual meetings. Current and new GHSEV members gathered on Thursday, December 8, at the Waterside Café (John P. McGovern TMC Commons) for an evening of learning, networking, and fellowship. We had the latest cardiovascular ultrasound and structural heart device technology on display, a fantastic meal catered by III by Wolfgang Puck, excellent educational talks, and a fun echo trivia competition.
We started with breakout sessions with our sponsors, whom we sincerely thank for making this event possible. Our current president, Dr. Enrique Garcia-Sayan, opened the session by reviewing the state of the GHSEV, our achievements in 2022 (including reaching a record number of 155 active members), and the current Directors and Committee members. He congratulated our own Triston Thompson for being named Sonographer Volunteer of the Month by the ASE (check out the article on page 10 of November’s Echo Magazine). He thanked Leticia Vazquez (Secretary) and Jessica Murphy (Treasurer) for their tireless work in helping run the GHSEV and putting together this event. Dr. Garcia-Sayan acknowledged and thanked our vendors and sponsors that helped make this event possible: Abbott, Agfa, Bracco, Canon, Edwards, GE, Medtronic, Parks, and Philips.
The educational session began with two excellent talks. Dr. Thanila A. Macedo from UTHealth discussed “Imaging Surveillance Protocols for EVAR in 2022”, and Dr. Srikanth Koneru from Baylor College of Medicine presented “Mitral Valve Disease: A Multimodality Approach.” Thank you, Drs. Macedo and Koneru, for joining our event and for your outstanding talks.
We then played a game of Echo Trivia, moderated by Dr. Stratos Koutroumpakis (MDACC), fifteen fast-paced questions covering a wide range of topics. Congratulations to Alex Medina and Kaitlyn Stallings for first and second place, respectively. Jessica Murphy delivered their winning prizes and then conducted the traditional lottery for additional gifts and door prizes to other lucky attendees.
Thank you all for participating in this meeting, and thanks again to all of our vendors. We thoroughly enjoyed seeing everyone in person again. If you missed the session, check out some of the pictures below, and you will be able to download a pdf version of the speakers’ slides soon (please login and access the Education / Slides and Videos section of our website). CME credit is only available to live attendees.
Have a wonderful and safe holiday season, and we’ll see you in February for our first quarterly meeting of 2023.
The GHSEV Board of Directors