KARACHI, Jan 8: More than 30 cases of cardiovascular interventions will be undertaken during the three days of a workshop to be organized by the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases, the footage of which will be relayed to two Pakistani, one American and one Singaporean city via the internet.

This way every procedure performed in NICVD, Karachi, will be followed closely by surgeons, physicians and students gathered in selected medical centres in Rawalpindi, Lahore, New York and Singapore. The procedures will be performed by local and foreign experts.

The event at which these procedures will be performed is called “Cardiovascular-Interventions in Developing Countries” which will be attended by 12 foreign surgeons and physicians, the NICVD’s executive director told Dawn on Wednesday.

Prof Azhar M.A. Faruqui said the cardiology institutes in Lahore and Rawalpindi, besides medical centres in New York and Singapore had been interlinked over the telephone lines for the workshop. “The entire proceedings of the workshop, including the said procedures, will be observable on the internet.”

The professor said that in response to the appeal by NICVD for submission of cases which could be undertaken during the three-day workshop, it had received at least 90 histories. “Out of these, 30 will be undertaken during the congress proper and another ten in the post-congress sessions.”

The NICVD’s director claimed that the workshop, to be held from Jan 17 to 19, was the first Pakistani event in which footage of the proceedings were being relayed using the video-conferencing technique.

“The event will be unique as it will be a defining moment in terms of teaching, workshop management and also development of infrastructure, especially information technology.”

Answering a question, he said the NICVD might encounter problems during the workshop if telephone lines developed faults or if there was a power failure. “However, we will learn from these problems too. So it’s a win-win situation for us and for the country.”