The European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging (EACVI), a registered branch of the ESC, is committed to maintaining a high standard of professional excellence among cardiologists specialized in cardiovascular imaging (CVI) throughout Europe. To ensure a uniform quality standard of practice and professional excellence, the EACVI embarked on developing and providing an individual certification process for each imaging modality.
The certification process assesses the candidates’ knowledge, evaluates training and skills acquired. EACVI certifications of competency is not a compulsory or regulatory certificate. An individual’s right to report and sign imaging studies in individual countries remains defined by national laws and regulations.
This certification process is currently available for adult transthoracic echocardiography, adult transoesophageal echocardiography, congenital heart disease echocardiography, cardiovascular magnetic resonance, cardiovascular magnetic resonance in congenital and paediatric heart disease, and nuclear cardiology.
From 2018, the EACVI also offers a standardized certification process for cardiac computed tomography (CCT). The objective is to certify individuals who demonstrate the knowledge and competency in CCT. At the end of this process, certified individuals will have successfully demonstrated a European standard for competency in their ability acquire, interpret, and report CCT exams. To ensure a consistent standard of CCT training, three different levels of competency are defined for the development of the EACVI CCT certification process. The specified criteria for each level of training serve to guide this progress and outline the educational requirements to be fulfilled for those seeking certification.1
The benefits from EACVI CCT certification are: (i) to ensure the performing physician has the necessary expertise in CCT for the welfare of the patients undergoing scans; (ii) to provide CCT trainees the opportunity to benchmark their knowledge against a common European standard; (iii) to bring professional credibility to any individual practicing CCT.
The first EACVI CCT exam has been recently held in Milan during Euroecho & Imaging congress 2018 (Figure 1).
Cardiac computed tomography certification session during Euroecho Imaging Congress 2018 in Milan.
Forty-eight candidates sat the exam. In order to assess the candidate’s knowledge, the exam has been divided into two parts, both using a multiple choice question (MCQ) format. The first section consisted of MCQs to test the candidate’s theoretical knowledge, covering all items included in the syllabus2 and the second section will be comprised of clinical cases to assess the practical experience for a total of 100 MCQs. Candidates are required to pass both parts of the examination to be successful.
The European Cardiac CT Certification Exam content was based on the current EACVI Cardiac CT Syllabus.2 The aim of the EACVI CCT Core Syllabus is to define the educational requirements for individuals who wish to practice cardiac CT. The syllabus helps trainees to prepare for knowledge-based assessments and European certification. It also provides the basis for the development of educational material and teaching events organized throughout Europe.
The selected question writing committee represents the EACVI Nuclear Cardiology and Cardiac Computed Tomography section and the EACVI Certification and Accreditation Committee. The committee is comprised of highly experienced specialists in CCT. After the success of the first exam provided in Milan, the entire certification team is eager to continue preparations for the next issue and hopefully be able to announce soon the next exam. We are thankful to all experts in Europe and around the world who have contributed to the exam questions for their exemplary work.
Conflict of interest: none declared.
