10/02/2021
The Cuomo Foundation headquarters was the location for its first live-streamed medical video conferencing hosted by the renowned cardio surgeon Professor Gilles Dreyfus and took place on the 9th February in Monaco. The virtual meeting conference was entitled “Surgical Repair of the Rheumatic Mitral Valve” and was specifically aimed to support the Senegalese surgeons and others operating at the Cuomo Centre Paediatric -Cardio (CCPC) in Dakar. This seminar was an initiative in response to current difficulties created by the current Covid restrictions and allows for virtual teaching and training online for knowledge and expertise in specifics of cardio surgery.
Professor Amadou Gabriel Ciss the head of Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery FANN University Hospital in Dakar had requested Professor Gilles Dreyfus to host such a presentation. Professor Dreyfus is cardiac surgeon at the Institute Mutualiste Montsouris (IMM) in Paris and director of the Medical and Scientific department of the CCPC in Dakar. Accustomed to participating frequently in medical conferences on the international stage in person and carrying out numerous humanitarian missions, surgeries and master classes in Dakar; Professor Dreyfus had to find new tools to adapt to this remote virtual connection.
In response to the invitation by Professor Ciss to attend the video conference more than twenty practitioners from Senegal, Benin, Burkina Faso, Djibouti and Mali met and took part in the virtual forum. The subject managed by Professor Dreyfus is vital for the sub-Saharan African area as rheumatic valve infections are the main source of acquired coronary illness in youngsters in less developed countries. The interest stimulated by the discourse given was additionally checked by the long question and answer session that followed the presentation.