Cardiovascular engineering

Cardiovascular engineering is an interdisciplinary field combining the use of complex medical equipment, the requirements of the medical experts from heart, thoracic and vascular surgery, cardiology, cardio-anaesthesiology and laboratory medicine as well as the individual needs of the patient.

The area of responsibilities of the cardiovascular technician in the Schüchtermann-Klinik comprises the following fields, which are constantly improved by technical and clinical enhancements:

• extracorporal circulation, self-reliant operation of the heart-lung machine in a team with heart surgeon and anaesthetist
• circulatory support methods
• monitoring of the vital parameters
• lab-scale measuring processes (e.g. blood gas and blood chemistry analysis)
• blood-processing techniques
• cooperation in the cardiac rhythm therapy (e.g. pacemaker)
• documentation and statistics
• cooperation in clinical research activities

Open-heart surgery became possible only when the heart-lung machine was devised in the 1950s. The system that takes over the functions of heart and lung thus enabling the surgeon to operate on the arrested heart and to open the cavities of the heart is also successfully applied for surgery of the large arteries. During these surgeries the cardiovascular technicians control the heart-lung machine.

For the vocational training of cardiovascular technicians our department collaborates with the Akademie für Kardiotechnik (Academy for Cardiovascular Engineering) at the Deutsches Herzzentrum Berlin (German Heart Institute Berlin, www.dhzb.de).