On Feb. 16, neonatal, pediatric and adult cardiovascular ultrasound practitioner Dr. War Vichayanond of Picayune will present “Echo 360° – Destination Unknown” to the Faculty of Medicine of Burapha University in Thailand.
Since 1996, Vichayanond has provided ultrasound services at Riser Medical Associates and in 2001, saved the life of Wiggins resident Catherine Seals. Her story will be one of many highlighted during his presentation.
In a letter to Vichayanond dated Jan. 5, 2016, Seals recounts the events from Christmas of 2001.
“On Dec. 19, I was taking my mother, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, to see Dr. James M. Riser,” Seals said in the letter. “While I was waiting for my mother, I asked Dr. Riser about my cough. Dr. Riser did an EKG on me and told me that he wanted Dr. Vichayanond to check my heart.”
Vichayanond performed an echocardiogram and discovered a tumor, also known as intracardiac myxoma, Vichayanond said. Seals was sent to a Slidell hospital and underwent open-heart surgery.
“If Dr. Vichayanond hadn’t found the tumor in my heart that day,” Seals said in the letter, “I wouldn’t be here with my family today.”
Vichayanond said he was shocked that Seals could still get around, given her condition. Seals had been seeing other physicians, he said, but was only prescribed antibiotics.
“It was a very bad tumor and she didn’t have very much longer to live,” Vichayanond said. “Symptoms of this type of mass include shortness of breath with activity, chest pain, palpitation, coughing, paroxysmal nocturnal dyspnea, heart murmur, abnormal EKG, dizziness and fainting. If left untreated, intracardiac myxoma can cause congestive heart failure, cardiac arrhythmias, infection, embolization, pulmonary edema, pulmonary hypertension, blockage of heart valves and sudden death.”
Along with Seals’ story, Vichayanond will present information about imaging pertaining to fetal echocardiography, liver disease, deep vein thrombosis and more during his trip to Thailand.
In preparation for this trip, Vichayanond took video recordings of ten physicians from Gulfport, Covington, LSU Children’s Hospital, Lacombe, Picayune and Malibu, California.
Medical personnel in Thailand will also hear from Dr. James Riser and family nurse practitioner Mary Hess of Picayune via the videos, Vichayanond said.
“It is rather amazing that someone from a small town of Picayune, Mississippi will be presenting complex medical topics to the world,” Philip Faraci, MD, FACS., Cardiothoracic Surgery of Malibu, California told Vichayanond during his video interview.
Vichanaynond, who was invited to the university to speak, said many of the medical personnel there do not know a lot about multi-modality imaging. Examples of multi-modality imaging include echocardiography, renal scans, peripheral scans, cat scans and angiograms, he said.
“I will be able to teach them the correct way to understand imaging and sources they need to know to diagnose diseased,” he said.