Postgraduate Student of TNMU is a Graduate of the VASCERN Summer School

Postgraduate student of Ternopil National Medical University Anna-Maria Koval is a graduate of the VASCERN Summer School held with the support of the ERASMUS+ Blended Intensive Program (BIP) in Paris, France.

The VASCERN Summer School consisted of a 15-week online program and an interpersonal module – a one-week intensive program from September 23 to 28 at the Bichat-Claude Bernard Hospital in Paris. This approach allowed participants to gain in-depth knowledge from leading European experts, including Dr. Meike Rybczynski, Prof. Guillaume Jondeau, Prof. Hugues Chabriat, Dr. Gido G., Dr. Annouk Bisdorff Bresson, Dr. Olivia Boccara, Dr. Julien Coulie, and Prof. Laurence Boon and many others!

VASCERN Summer School is dedicated to advancing knowledge in rare vascular diseases, their genetic causes, diagnosis, clinical aspects, follow-up, and treatment among the next generation of healthcare professionals across Europe. In particular, such pathologies as Marfan syndrome and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome; neurodegenerative diseases, including CADASIL and Moyamoya angiopathy; lymphatic, capillary, and arteriovenous malformations, Sturge-Weber syndrome; hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia have been considered.

The most interesting was the multidisciplinary approach of specialists to each disease. Among the program participants were doctors and scientists of various specialties, and everyone received valuable information in their fields!

Each day, participants had lectures, discussions of clinical cases, and communication with patients or patients’ representatives (parents or family members). In addition, during the last day, the participants studied the psychological component of patients with rare diseases and, in the form of real scenarios, learned to communicate with the “patient” (real-world scenarios), developing communication skills.