The Mayo Clinic Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory

Book excerpt: This book explores the history of the Mayo Clinic Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory from 1940 to present day. It examines the life and journey of the Cardiac Catheterization Lab and its ultimate success in implementing the vision of the Mayo philosophy of emphasizing collaboration between lab-based scientists and clinical health care professionals to bring innovation to the clinical practice and lead landmark changes in the practice of medicine profoundly enhancing what we can offer to patients and society alike. The book is divided into decades, with separate sections in each decade on key cardiology topics such as congenital heart disease, coronary heart disease, hemodynamics, pacing, and electrophysiology (EP). Chapters will highlight training, advances, new procedures, new technologies, and fundamental changes to the field throughout the decades, attributed to the work done by Cath lab personnel. Chapters also identify the problems faced, the unmet clinical needs of patients and society, problems solved, and things learned and transmitted into the clinical arena along the way. The Mayo Clinic Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory will be a valuable resource for health care professionals, clinicians, scientists, innovators, administrators, and small and large device manufacturing companies as well as historians and past and present patients.