Giuseppe Speziale and Mitral Academy. Spreading Exellence

One of the key moments of MICS 2016 will be the presentation of the Mitral Academy, conceived and presided over precisely by Dr. Giuseppe Speziale - Heart surgeon specialised in minimally invasive, nano-invasive and hybrid methods of valve repair and reconstruction, aortic reconstruction, myocardial revascularisation (on and off pump), as well as President of MICS.
 
An independent association with headquarters in Italy, the national and international leading facilities in the mitral sector collaborate with the Mitral Academy. It arose from the passion for mitral surgery and from the desire to pursue and share excellence in the repair sector, with particular emphasis on minimally invasive surgery: the clinical and academic faculty holds theoretical and practical meetings at different times of the year and in different locations.
 
The first concrete act of the Mitral Academy is, in fact, MICS 2016: not just a symposium organised to spread the state of the art in terms of mitral disease. It rather intends to be the foundation event of the Mitral Academy, which represents a more extensive and complex project in the world of heart surgery: meetings that offer key readings on the mitral state of the art through videos, boxing rings and panel discussions, to acquire principles of critical thinking and decision making.
 
One of the main tasks of this project is to provide a cultural platform to encourage discussion between scientific societies, institutions and patients: we cannot “certify” doctors or facilities, but we can collaborate with the institutions, so that each individual can work in the best way possible in their area of expertise.
This platform also intends to put all the medical and scientific professions in the best possible position to provide clear information to patients so that they can make an “informed choice” about their reference center.
 
“Still today - says Dr. Speziale - there are cultural gaps in the guidelines for the surgical treatment of mitral disease. Mitral Academy’s ambitious goal is to achieve the clinical and scientific results needed to at least partially fill these gaps. Thanks to the collaboration of European and American specialists - he concludes - the Mitral Academy intends to propose common consent documents for diagnostic and surgical procedures, which overcome the existing division between the guidelines of different countries”.