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The practices of cardiac electrophysiology and heart failure management intersect more closely each day. The newest way in which this occurs is through the implantation of devices to monitor heart failure status. These devices may be stand-alone devices that monitor fluid status, or devices which offer biventricular pacing and defibrillation combined with monitoring capabilities. Because the EP team may be involved with both implantation and follow-up of these devices, an understanding of their function and capabilities is essential.

Recently, the role the esophagus plays in left atrial ablation procedures has captured a great deal of attention in electrophysiology worldwide. More and more press has been given to the disastrous consequences associated with prolonged, high-energy radiofrequency (RF) lesions eroding through the posterior wall of the left atrium, and causing atrio-esophageal fistulas.¹ Though highly uncommon, this has caused the electrophysiology community to modify how it proceeds with ablations for atrial fibrillation and left atrial arrhythmias.

As you may be aware, “blogs” have become a popular new way of communicating with the world. The author of this article, Brock Tice, runs the blog “www.virtuallyshocking.com”, which chronicles the life of a Ph.D. student in the field of cardiac electrophysiology. In this article, he describes his work at Tulane University's Computational Cardiac Electrophysiology Lab.