Computer Vision News - February 2022

19 Marianna Meo By now, our readers know that you are Italian like me. Would you like to describe the girl that grew up in Naples some time ago? I left my hometown of Naples really early because Iwanted tostudy inRome. I studied at the biomedical engineering campus in Rome. Yes, I was very motivated at that time to explore, to learn, to do something more outside of my neighborhood. I always liked, and I still love, my hometown. But when I finished my high school studies, there were not enough opportunities in technology for engineers, and especially for women engineers. I think that now, more than ten years later… It's difficult to say, but it’s a long time [ laughs ]... I think now Were you ever scared by watching these procedures, by all the blood? Let’s say, there is not so much blood outside because, as I mentioned, these procedures are minimally invasive. They just insert the catheter into the femoral vein, so let’s say at the level of the upper leg. The blood is really minimal. There may be complications, not so often fortunately, but there are. What I’ve seen in Bordeaux is that people master these kinds of side complications. The nurse staff is there, ready to come up with solutions. So nothing very bad happens. I know there are more invasive procedures, but I’m not 100 percent sure I would be able to stand it! Duringmy studies in biomedical engineering, I have watched stomach surgeries. They were open organ surgeries… and I survived! [ laughs ] I didn’t faint! Did the patient survive? Always. I’ve been working a lot on atrial fibrillation. It is known to be dangerous for the patient in the long term, in the sense that it can lead to stroke. There are very severe long termconsequences, but it’s less life threatening than ventricular fibrillation for example, when the patient has to be defibrillated immediately. For these patients, the treatment, the catheterization mustbedonewithattention. I havenot seen lethal risks in these kinds of interventions.  We are like men, we can do everything! We can study! We can learn! We can explore!