Good morning. Welcome to day two of EP101, the signature program for education for cardiology fellows going into their EP fellowship. We had a very, very robust day yesterday with multiple lectures and discussions and really participation that we didn't anticipate. We had at one point over 350 people on the air staying on with a very high retention rate, and that included 160 international attendees from 24 different countries. So the popularity of this, I think, is quite evident from those kinds of numbers really filling an educational gap. The format may be very similar to yesterday. We'll have a series of recorded lectures, followed by moderated discussions, and some superb speakers coming in today with Sonny Jackman talking about ablation of atrial tachycardias, accessory pathways. Josh is going to talk about avian oval reentry ablation. Greg Michaud, who unfortunately can't be here, he's got a graduation. We will have his video on atrial ablation, and I'll moderate that. Josh will carry on the discussion, followed by Wendy Zao on VT ablation, and then finally Sunit Mittal's video from last year against Sunit Cannot Be Here. The evaluations are really key. Now, at the end of each lecture, you do have a very brief evaluation. I know that if you scroll down to the very bottom of those, you'll see a space for free-form comments. You will have more time with emails that come out with links to the videos, as well as time to comment. And it is particularly important that you give us feedback of what we did well, what we can do better next year, content and format, and Josh and I will make sure that we act on those to improve things for next year. EP101 is now over a decade and a half into its existence, and with the continuous improvement and iterations, I think you can see that we've really got an extraordinarily high-quality product that is filling an educational gap, and none of this would have happened without Boston Scientific's vision and support. And in that respect, too, I'm pleased to introduce Ken Stein, who's the Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer for Cardiac Rhythm Management and Global Health Policy. It's a big job. He oversees the clinical trials. He oversees the medical safety communications, not just for devices, but for electrophysiology and for the watchman as well. But most importantly, from my perspective, Ken has been extraordinarily supportive of medical education. He has basically followed the lead of the course directors and been very responsive to our requests on a year-to-year basis. So without further ado, Ken, I'll give you several minutes here to welcome the group and say a few words. Oh, great. Thanks a lot, Mark. That was a generous introduction. And I do want to welcome everyone to day two of our first-ever virtual EP101. As Mark said, I'm the Chief Medical Officer for Rhythm Management and Health Policy at Boston Scientific. I'm an electrophysiologist by training, spent many years on faculty at Cornell, but joined Boston 10 years ago. And really, in that decade now, we've had a commitment to provide electrophysiologists with the most comprehensive and the most innovative suite of products to treat patients with rhythm disorders and heart failure. Things like subcutaneous ICD, heart logic, heart failure diagnostic, arrhythmia, the world's most sophisticated 3D mapping system for mapping arrhythmias and ablation, Watchman, the world's only FDA-approved device for reduction of stroke risk in high-risk patients with atrial fibrillation. As Mark said, beyond providing products, we've also had a strong commitment to providing the science that backs up the utility of those products. And I do hope that everyone had a chance to see our late-breaking clinical trials at this year's virtual HRS. And also, as Mark said, a commitment to education. I grew up in the suburbs of New York, and there was a clothing store for a very long time that had commercials with the tagline, an educated consumer is our best customer. And I believe that to be the case when it comes to the practice of medicine as well. And it's one of the reasons we're really proud to be able to support Mark and Josh in presenting EP101. Circumstances are unique this year, and there are some disadvantages to having to present in a virtual as opposed to an in-person format. Instead of being in a hotel in Boston, I'm in the basement of my house in New York, and clearly lose some of the one-on-one interaction that I would have liked to have had with all of you. But on the other hand, we've seen that we're able to reach a much larger group of electrophysiologists. I know we had well over 300 people on yesterday, able to increase the reach so we have a global audience as opposed to U.S.-only audience. I watched yesterday and thought that the give and take, the quality of the questions was really terrific. So first off, thank you to Mark, and thank you to Josh, and thank you all the faculty for the flexibility in enabling us to very quickly pivot from the way we always did things to being able to present what I think is really an outstanding course this year on a very short timeframe. I think also have to give credit where credit's due to the folks from Boston Scientific, Laura, Tiffany, the whole medical education team. Again, as some of you I hope can imagine, it is no small task to figure out how to reconfigure a course like this and put together all the logistics to enable it to be delivered in really such a, I think, outstanding manner. I do want to make one comment just about where the world is today, and hopefully as I look at those of you who are entering into EP Fellowship, the role I hope that you all and we all will have. Holocaust survivor and author Elie Wiesel said once that indifference is the epitome of evil, and I don't think we can be indifferent to what's going on in the world around us at this point. Whether it's the really awful murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis a few days ago, whether it's the global pandemic and the impact that that's having on all of us, both medically, socially, and economically, I think that we can't be indifferent to the disproportionate impact that this is having on vulnerable people and vulnerable communities in the U.S. and around the world, and we all do need to be attentive to the disparities. In medicine, it's disparities to access to care and disparities in treatment, and so as those of you who are embarking on what will hopefully be the last stage in your training, going into EP Fellowship, and congratulations, you've picked the best specialty that there is. In addition to treating patients with skill and the skills that things like EP 101 will bring to you, I urge you all also to continue to treat people with kindness and with compassion and with integrity. As healthcare practitioners, we all have a responsibility but an opportunity to proactively be working to heal a broken world, and it's a world that needs us all at this time. So with that, again, I want to wish all of you the best of luck. I hope that you got a lot out of the course yesterday. I am sure that you'll get a lot out of the course today, and I will turn things back over to Josh and to Mark to continue what, as Mark said, is the flagship course for people going into EP Fellowship. So Mark, Josh, thank you. Thank you, Ken, very much as well. In particular, thank you for your comments putting what we're doing in a bigger perspective. Medicine, I think, plays a huge role in sort of addressing many inequities that we're seeing these days. If you're not convinced that you've picked the right discipline by going into EP before Sonny Jackson's lecture, I'm sure you will be afterwards. Sonny really doesn't need any introduction. He has really forged much of the information relative information about this. We're very fortunate to have him for many years. Sonny really doesn't need much of an introduction. He has immense experience, passion, and with that, Sonny, let me welcome you, and Josh, you may want to say a word or two before we start rolling the video, since we have a minute or two. Yeah, no, I think to stay on time, I'll keep it short, welcome for day two. Thanks to all of you for participating, both in the United States and elsewhere. It's very exciting for us to broaden our reach, and we'll have to have a good discussion about how we're going to proceed next year, especially if we're able to do it in person. We'll talk about it, and we welcome your feedback.

EP101 program

cardiology fellows

international attendees

recorded lectures

Boston Scientific support