Interventional Cardiac and Vascular Technology Program

Advancing the Boundaries of Medicine

Postgraduate Program of Vascular Radiology
ICVT [1] | Admission [2] | Courses [3] | Additional Information [4]

CHI St. Alexius Health in Bismarck, ND, and Forsyth Technical Community College in Winston-Salem, NC, are working together to provide a rewarding and challenging career opportunity for dedicated radiologic technologists in the field of interventional radiology/cardiology, special procedures, and angiography. The ICVT Program at ForsythTech [5] offers advanced (postgraduate) certificates that convey the theory for both peripheral vascular and cardiovascular imaging procedures (click [6] to capture the program highlights from ForsythTech). CHI St. Alexius Health will provide a one year internship for students who wish to pursue a career in peripheral vascular, cardiovascular and neurovascular techniques and digital angiography.

Training and supervision are provided in the newest interventional radiographic techniques. These procedures include:

• percutaneous transluminal angioplasty
• percutaneous atherectomy
• biliary drainage
• percutaneous genitourinary drainage procedures
• therapeutic embolization procedures
• insertion of vena cava filters
• superselective studies
• use of pharmacoangiographic techniques

Special procedures also provides experience in bronchography, lymphangiography and sialography.

Special procedures and interventional radiology is a rapidly progressing field. Therefore, well-trained technologists are in great demand as the specialty area of medicine continues to develop. The course main objective is to provide advanced study and to clinically train technologists to be technically-proficient and knowledgeable professionals in this ever-growing specialty field.

For the past 20 years, medicine has undergone a progression towards minimally-invasive procedures. Some of the providers on the forefront of this revolution are interventional radiologists. Thanks to their innovation, many medical conditions that once required surgery now can be treated non-surgically. Minimally-invasive procedures typically offer patients fewer risks, less pain and quicker recovery times compared to surgery.

Other advantages of interventional radiology procedures include:

• localized treatments, most often performed on an outpatient basis.
• not requiring general anesthesia.
• most patients resuming normal activities within a few days.
• the ability to combine with other treatment options.
• relatively low cost.