Descripition of Facilities
The Creighton Cardiac Center is a free-standing cardiology ambulatory clinic which has been accredited by the Joint Commission Accreditation Health Care Organizations. The center received an "Accredited with Commendation", the highest honor a facility can obtain. The center is located across the street from St. Joseph Hospital, the main teaching institution.
The Cardiac Center has three modern cardiac catheterization laboratories (one outpatient, two inpatient) that are equipped with image intensification, cine angiography with 35 mm cameras, digital subtraction angiography, Tag along, digital Cine Advantex, PE monitors, video tape and moderate physiologic recorders. Computer interfacing and all the tools and newest equipment for a sophisticated approach to diagnostics and research are used. A completely furnished intpatient electrophysiologic lab is also in full operation.
The noninvasive laboratory is equipped with modern equipment including M-mode echocardiographic recorders and two-dimensional echocardiographic recorders. The equipment is capable of performing pulsed, continuous wave and color doppler flow studies.
The Cardiac Center has a very extensive telephone dataphone EKG interpretative service involving hospitals in the surrounding five states. These electrocardiograms, plus the main hospital electrocardiograms, are available for electrocardiographic interpretation training experience as well as providing a significant potential for investigative projects.
Other areas that provide required training and experience for the cardiology fellows include:
a) A Cardiac Drug Evaluation Clinic was established to supervise a patient's drug treatment and to evaluate promising new cardiovascular drug therapy. This clinic provides an opportunity to participate in the investigative studies with newer drugs. This clinic provides a background understanding of basic pharmacological cardiac drug therapy and of pharmaceutical principles and analyses.
b) The Ambulatory Monitoring Laboratory uses high speed computer processing to analyze 24-hour EKG recordings. Several recordings, both from St. Joseph Hospital and the surrounding communities, are presented for case analysis every month and provide an extensive source for experience and learning.
c) The Pacemaker and ICD Clinic conducts routine telephone follow-up for over one thousand patients with pacemakers and ICD's throughout a seven state area. It provides clinical exposure in the use and application of the newer pacemaker technologies and understanding of the basic mechanisms of different implantable cardiac pacemakers, defibrilators and programmers
d) A Cardiac Rehabilitation Program, having three phases, is designed to fully develop the patient's physical, mental, and social potential. The fellow is assigned a regular rotation through this rehabilitation program to understand the different phases. The fellows gain an appropriate understanding of the outpatient rehabilitation as well as preventive medicine.
e) A Lipid Clinic is designed to evaluate risk factors and to identify and treat individuals at high risk. This is in addition to the outpatient care that has become an important part of the clinical management of cardiac patients.
f) A library is located on the second floor in the Cardiac Center. The fellows may connect with a network of libraries as well as the internet from the computer station. It is available for use by the fellows twenty-four hours a day. Creighton University also has a Biomedical Library available.
The primary clinical teaching facility is St. Joseph Hospital but the second and third year fellows rotate at Bergan Mercy Hospital also. In all areas the fellow is given considerable responsibilities for patient care. Educational lectures are held in the auditorium at the Cardiac Center.
For one desiring to pursue further graduate studies, degree work is available under the auspices of the Creighton University Graduate School. This work involves both formal course work at the university and specific subjects to be given on an informal basis in the department.