The division of Cardiology at UBC has been active in contributing to the fight against COVID-19, and ensuring optimal patient care during this pandemic.
Dr. Andrew Krahn is leading a national CCS COVID-19 Rapid Response Team to provide up-to-date information and advice to cardiac care providers across the country. Other UBC Cardiology members involved include Drs. Kenneth Gin, Sean Virani, David Wood, Simone Cowan, Christopher Fordyce and Benny Lau. There was also partnership and collaboration with Dr. Alice Virani from Clinical Ethics, Mr. Sean Hardiman from Cardiac Services BC, as well as trainees from the UBC Cardiology program Drs. Nathaniel Moulson and Thomas Roston. Please visit the Canadian Cardiovascular Society website homepage at www.ccs.ca for the links to all the documents and webinars.
Dr. David Wood, in collaboration with other UBC division members and 15 North American cardiovascular societies, have produced a guidance document on how to safely re-introduce cardiovascular services during the pandemic. This has been simultaneously published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, the Canadian Journal of Cardiology, and the Annals of Thoracic Surgery. The link to the article is: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0735109720351652
Dr. Teresa Tsang has won a UBC Supercluster grant to look at the use of portable ultrasound in the diagnosis of COVID-19 pneumonia, which will significantly speed up the diagnosis especially in rural and remote areas. For more information: https://news.ubc.ca/2020/05/26/ubc-researchers-develop-portable-ultrasound-scanner-network-for-covid-19/.
Dr. Jacqueline Saw has also won funding to study the use of CT angiography in patients with COVID-19.