It’s a routine operation that begins before our eyes. “We recently celebrated twenty years of this technique called TAVI (1). Here we do five hundred a year », calculates Anne Bernard, head of the cardiology department at the Regional University Hospital Center (CHRU) of Tours since 1is October 2024.
Anne Bernard has officially been in office since October 1, 2024, but she has held the position since May and the election as dean of the medical faculty of her predecessor, Professor Denis Angoulvant.
© (Photo NR, Alexandre Métivier)
In this department, one of the hundred and fifty listed at the CHRU, there are seventeen full-time doctors, three clinical heads, one specialist assistant, thirteen interns and four junior doctors, as well as one hundred and sixty paramedical staff (nurses, nursing assistants, hospital service agents, radio technicians) and finally twenty-one executives.
Increasing interventions
The service, recently reorganized, deals with all cardiac emergencies: heart attack, shock, embolism, rhythm disorders, heart failure. “We carry out 6,500 technical interventions on the heart per year”adds Anne Bernard. To this total, we must add 13,000 ultrasounds, 12,000 consultations and 10,000 hospitalizations each year.
In a room like this, ultrasound scans are performed.
© (Photo NR, Alexandre Métivier)
Rising numbers, “by around 10% over the past ten years. Firstly because the population is aging and cardiovascular diseases are increasing with it. Cardiology has transformed. There are things we didn’t do twenty years ago.”adds the professor.
The cardiology service aims to be comprehensive and innovative “with a new activity in vascular medicine, a development of outpatient care because many procedures do not require the patient to stay asleep”, explains the head of department.
Here, a coronagraphy room.
© (Photo NR, Alexandre Métivier)
“We are also a reference center for aortic valves. We have just deployed a prosthetic valve percutaneously (without opening the thorax). We are the fifth center in Europe to implement itshe adds. We were also the first in France to implant a pacemaker on November 4 with two capsules and without a probe. We have always been a pioneer in Tours. To treat people well, we must move forward. We also do a lot of research to test new drugs. »
(1) For Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation or percutaneous aortic valve implantation.
CHRU of Tours. Six sites: Bretonneau, Trousseau, Clocheville and Hermitage hospitals, Tours Sud psychotherapy center and university psychiatric clinic.
Such. 02.47.47.47.47, www.chu-tours.fr.
Manager: Floriane Rivière, general director.
Workforce: more than 9,000 people.
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