Dr. Paul Teirstein and panelists discuss Rampart and team protection at Cardiovascular Interventions symposium

Course Director Paul Teirstein MD, DNBPAS, FACC, FSCAI is shown using a Geiger counter during the 33rd Annual Cardiovascular Interventions last month in La Jolla, CA demonstrating Rampart’s radiation attenuation efficacy. In the discussion, Dr. Teirstein explains how Rampart addresses two key factors that can affect a cath lab team’s daily performance and career longevity: radiation exposure and the physical burden of wearing protective lead.

It is wonderful to see Rampart in live cases at the symposium, protecting interventionalists and their teams as they care for patients. We applaud Dr. Teirstein, an early Rampart adopter, and these panelists, for their efforts to challenge institutions and colleagues to adopt potentially career-saving technologies sooner rather than later.

Direct link to video here. Video transcript below:

Dr. David Rizik:

But just curious from the panel, how are you guys monitoring your radiation real time or case to case with Rampart?

Dr. Paul Teirstein:

OK let me show you. That’s exactly what I want to show you. So I'm going to go I'm just going to get my lead and just do this. It’ll take three minutes... maybe not even that long, because I want to I'm going to step out around the Rampart and show you how much radiation we get.

Here's what we're going to do. Steve Steuterman is our Radiation Safety Officer. And this is what really got us very convinced that this was a great idea.

So I'm on the north side of the Rampart. What I'm getting here. Okay are you on fluoro, guys? Okay. So it says 6... wait a second it has to settle in. 807 microR/hr. 750 now. 750 to 800. Depending on how I hold it. Now I'm going to take it while you're on fluoro and put it under my lead. Okay. To see what my lead protection is. Yeah. Just open that up. Stay in fluoro. And it's reading 207. Wow. That's under, that's behind my lead. Okay now stay on fluoro and I'm going to come out here. We were right about here.

Dr. Bill Lombardi:

Paul, stand by in the Rampart yourself, buddy. You're on the wrong side. Get closer in.

Dr. Paul Teirstein:

Well, no, this is about where I was. So it’s 28 here. We can get closer here. It goes up to 94. But over here. . . Stay on fluoro. If I’m really close to it, it’s you know, it’s well, it’s way above it’s 1.6 if I get that close. And if I go behind my lead 302, 281 compared to, you know, where I'm

standing behind the Rampart is 95. So I'm getting like a third of the radiation dose that I would

if I was wearing a lead. Okay. Because this thing is one millimeter. It's twice as thick as my lead. Not only am I getting a third of the dose that I would be underneath the lead, but my head's not getting radiated, my eyes aren't getting radiated. My you know, nothing's getting radiated

and my back doesn't hurt.

And me tell you- this course is usually brutal for me. I'm just exhausted. It's much easier to do this course with Rampart. I mean, I can't overestimate that. It changes the exhaustion at the end of the day. And I think it's important for people to- even when we get this, there's a certain inertia and getting it used every case. It takes an extra three, maybe 3 minutes to bag this up and roll it in.

But I think it's- I'm a big believer in this.

Dr. Jason Wollmuth:

And also the younger... I found that the younger physicians and their fellows, they weren't that like into it because they don't realize. They feel invincible. But ten years from now... Right. They're going to be feeling it.

Dr. Paul Teirstein:

They feel like they're going to live forever. But I think this is transformative and I wish I had- And that's why... And that’s why I even brought the check in myself, because I said, you know what, I'm just not going to wait another two years. I may not even be here in two years.

Dr. David Rizik:

This is David Rizik. And I really, really want to compliment you on this, because what you do at this meeting is you give interventionalists, nurses, cath lab techs, whatever... information to take back to their institutions- whether or not it's how to do a procedure, or in this case: the absolute importance of radiation safety. And you've been driving this point home. You've been talking about this. You put your money where your mouth is. For those who don't know, Paul went out and bought the first system for his institution.

We need to keep banging this home as much of a priority as how to do a left main or how to do a CTO- is how to survive in the cath lab for 30 years.

Dr. Bill Lombardi:

Well, let's think about Amir's talk yesterday and why our institutions won't buy this for us now.

Dr. Paul Teirstein:

Yeah, good point.

Dr. David Rizik:

So I want to compliment you on taking ownership of this. And really, as I said, putting money- I'm going to talk on this later today about the Rampart system. But you've really led the way in this. And I'm so grateful.