Applications of color flow mapping in pediatric cardiology

Our approach to the application of flow mapping in pediatric cardiology has been to attempt to define, in technical terms, the relationship between the nature of the imaging technology and the nature of the questions to be asked about flow. The late William Rashkind, to whom this issue of Cardiology Clinics is dedicated, set an important example to me in the early stages of my training about the understanding of defined clinical problems and the development of technologies to adapt to those specific problems. In this way, using his ingenuity, his energy, and his love both of good times and difficult problems, he pioneered new and unexplored areas of our field and set an important example for us to follow. The applications of color flow mapping, a new and rapidly evolving technology, are still in their infancy, and it behooves the pediatric cardiologist to evolve in his expertise along with the evolution of the instrumentation toward new and important impacts which these imaging methods will have in the health care of children with heart disease.