Carmelo tells us his own story. He had to leave the cath-lab in 2021 due to a recurrence of cancer.

 

He was first diagnosed in 2016, at which point there were questions about whether his cancer was radiation related – but with the recurrence in 2021 the oncologist advised him not to work as an interventional cardiologist.

 

Between 2019 – 2020,  Carmelo had to work in a mobile lab, which had 3 times the amount of radiation compared to a standard cath-lab. When he brought this up with cath-lab manager, he was advised to either continue in cath-lab or work in the clinic. He chose to selectively only do right heart caths, rather than invasive/ coronary procedures.

 

After Carmelo measured exposure of the lab, he made staff and colleagues aware of the danger, and they have since removed the mobile lab.

 

He paved the way to develop complex CTO, and pioneered many interventional skills that the next generation is employing to this day.