Media Releases and Opportunities

Every year, doctors at the QEII Hospital in Halifax perform more than 100 highly specialized procedures to remove life-threatening blood clots, treat aneurysms and remedy other problems with the brain's arteries.

Called endovascular thrombectomies, or EVTs, the treatment requires skill, efficiency and expert training. Now, trainees across Atlantic Canada will be able to practise performing EVTs in a simulated setting thanks to a $415,000-Mentice digital training device and software Dalhousie University and the QEII have acquired.

Dalhousie will be one of only three medical schools in Canada with the equipment needed to train medical students on EVTs, a minimally invasive procedure in which doctors guide a catheter into the brain vessels from an artery in a patient's wrist or groin.

Previously, people had to learn by watching someone more experienced and then by doing it themselves under supervision.

Dr. David Volders, an interventional neuroradiologist and associate professor at Dalhousie's Faculty of Medicine, is leading that training which will allow health-care teams to perfect intricate, life-saving procedures in a risk-free environment.

The QEII Foundation has contributed $200,000 to the project and the Faculty of Medicine is contributing the remainder, in part by seeking donations.

Dr. Volders, who specializes in treating people with aneurysms or who have had a stroke, is available to discuss this game-changing technology and how it promises to greatly reduce the risks associated with the procedure by enhancing physician training.

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Media contact:

Alison Auld
Senior Research Reporter
Communications, Marketing and Creative Services
Dalhousie University 
Cell: 1-902-220-0491 
Email: alison.auld@dal.ca