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Getting to the Heart of Things
About the Course.......
The Courses for the Small Animal Practitioner CE
Series is designed to present an intensive review of a specific topic.
Our goal is to provide the most up-to-date information on diagnosis and
therapy with an emphasis on keeping it applicable for everyday
practice. If you have attended in the past, we look forward to seeing
you again. If you haven’t at-tended previously, we invite you to join
us this year and hope that this annual series will become a regular
part of your future continuing education plan.
This year the focus is on CARDIOLOGY “Getting to the Heart of Things”. Heart disease is a common
problem diagnosed in cats and dogs. It can be a congenital problem or
acquired later in life. Patients with heart disease may present with an
incidental murmur or in fulminant congestive heart failure requiring
immediate emergency treatment.
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Clinical signs of heart failure are not specific. Coughing
and respiratory distress may also be seen with primary respiratory
disease. How should the coughing dog be worked up to determine if the
cough is due to heart disease or respiratory disease?
How should a cat with an increased respiratory rate and
effort be evaluated? Heart murmurs are often an incidental finding on
routine physical examinations. What exactly is a heart murmur? How
should a patient with a heart murmur be evaluated? What additional
diagnostics should be performed to determine if the murmur is
clinically significant? What guidelines may be used to help direct
these clinical decisions?
Thoracic radiographs are the most important diagnostic tool
in evaluating a patient for heart disease/failure. Unfortunately
thoracic films can be frustrating to interpret. How can you get the
most out of thoracic radiographs? How can heart size be evaluated? What
breed variations affect appearance of the cardiac silhouette? What are
radiographic signs of heart failure in the dog and in the cat?
Regardless of the underlying disease process (mitral valve
insufficiency, hypertrophic or dilated cardiomyopathy or congenital
heart disease) the end result can be congestive heart failure. What is
the best approach to treating a patient in CHF? When should
ACE-Inhibitors be used? When should diuretics be used? What are
indications for digoxin or antiarrhythmics? What can be done with the
refractory patient? Are there any new drugs that can be used?
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There are two main questions which must be
answered in evaluating a patient for heart disease. The first is
whether heart disease is present and if so if it is clinically
significant.
The second is what is the best way to treat the
patient. The goal of this seminar is to “get to the heart of
cardiology” and make answering these questions easier.
Course Faculty......
Hattie Bortnowski, DVM. Dipl. ACVIM (Internal Medicine) Clinical Instructor of
Small Animal Internal Medicine, Department of Medical Sciences,
UW-Madison, SVM. She also operates a private mobile cardiology
consulting practice.
Helio Autran de Morais, DVM, PhD, Dipl. ACVIM (Small Animal Internal Medicine &
Cardiology) Clinical Associate Professor and Head of Small Animal
Medicine, Department of Medical Sciences, UW-Madison, SVM.
Lisa J. Forrest, VMD, Dipl. ACVR (Radiology, Radiation Oncology) Clinical
Associate Professor of Radiology, Department of Surgical Sciences,
UW-Madison SVM.
Rosemary A. Henik, DVM, MS, Dipl. ACVIM (Internal Medicine) Clinical Associate
Professor of Small Animal Internal Medicine, Department of Medical
Sciences, UW-Madison, SVM.
Heidi Kellum,
DVM Second year cardiology resident at UW-Madison, VMTH.
Rebecca L. Stepien, DVM, MS, DACVIM (Cardiology) Clinical Associate Professor -
Cardiology, Department of Medical Sciences, UW-Madison, SVM.
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