DISEASES OF THE CARDIOVASCULAR APPARATUS (B)
Learning outcomes of the course unit
During the course, students will acquire knowledge about the topics presented in the lectures; in particular they will be able to understand the steps of diagnosis and differential diagnosis of major cardiovascular diseases.
These objectives will allow students to understand and then to implement in practice, with discrete independent judgment, the following skills: cardiovascular risk assessment, clinical evaluation of patient with acute coronary sindorme and with heart failure.
The student will learn to communicate informations that will be assessed during the course and subsequently questioned orally during the oral examination.
Prerequisites
Knowledge of cardiovascular anatomy and physiology.
Course contents summary
The course will be divided into three parts and will trace the continuum of cardiovascular risk from preclinical to the more advanced stages of heart disease.
The three topics will be: prevention of cardiovascular disease, ischemic heart disease and heart failure.
In the first part, concerning the prevention of cardiovascular disease, will be treated aspects of pathophysiology of cardiovascular disease and risk factors. In particular, mainly topics will be not only risk factors defined as "classics" but also "emerging" ones, with particular attention to the role of inflammation and autonomic nervous system. It will be also discussed the issue reclassification of cardiovascular risk, according to data that can be obtained through the study of emerging risk factors.
The second part, concerning ischemic heart disease, will dealt aspects of classification, epidemiology, pathophysiology, diagnosis and treatment of acute coronary syndromes and of stable ischemic heart disease. Particular attention will be given to clinical aspects of diagnosis and differential diagnosis of chest pain.
The third part, regarding heart failure, will dealt aspects of classification, epidemiology, pathophysiology, diagnosis and treatment of heart failure, systolic and diastolic.
Particular attention will be given to the role of the periphery in the systemic syndrome of heart failure.
The course will also be integrated with theoretical and practical exercises in an ambulatory center dedicated to the management of cardiovascular prevention, where students can attend to patient management in primary, secondary and tertiary cardiovascolar prevention.
Recommended readings
Lecture notes, transparencies and slides of the lectures.
- Harrison's. Principles of internal medicine, Mc Graw-Hill.
- Braunwald, Heart disease. Elsevier
Teaching methods
The course will be structured with lectures followed by a moment, at the end of each lesson, of discussion regarding the topics treated. Lectures will be accompanied by a period of practical training in which student will stand side by side of a cardiologist during a clinica visit. During this practical training, and at the end of the practice phase, there will be a moment of interactive discussion between the student and the specialist cardiologist
Assessment methods and criteria
Final assessment will be structured as oral examination, including an evaluation made by some professors. The final judgement will be obtained form the average of the scores made by each individual teacher. The final vote will take account of knowledge acquired during the course, ability to link together all knowledge, expressive capacity and also specific ability of the student.
