Curriculum

** Variations in the calendar may result in weeks not equaling 52.

Clinical Training

Clinical rotations include:

• Cardiology Inpatient Service (Heart and Kidney Unit - HKU)
• Inpatient Consultation Service
• Cardiac Intensive Care Unit (CICU)
• Imaging (Echo, fetal cardiology, MRI, CT)
• Cardiac Catheterization
• Electrophysiology Service
• Subspecialty:
  • Adult Congenital Heart Disease
  • Heart Failure and Transplant
  • Pulmonary Hypertension

Fellows participate in outpatient continuity clinic for one half day per week during their first year and for one full day every other week during their second and third years. Training during the third year includes a “pre-attending” on-service experience, a community cardiology call experience, and elective experiences to tailor the year to meet individual training goals.

On-call responsibilities for the cardiology fellowship are performed predominantly through a night float system, which allows for continuity of care without sacrificing time from clinical and research duties. Monday night through Saturday night coverage is provided by an in-house cardiology fellow. Saturday day shift and Sundays are covered by an additional fellow, allowing for continuity of care over the weekend. Sunday overnight call may be performed at home if the clinical service allows. Call responsibilities include coverage of cardiology service and consult patients, new consults throughout the hospital and in the Emergency Department, parent phone calls, and assisting in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit as needed. On call fellows also spend time performing echocardiograms and participating in cardiac catheterizations and electrophysiology procedures as they arise. Fellows are on call for approximately four weeks of night float and four additional weekends per year..

Cardiac Intensive Care Unit call is scheduled through a separate night float system integrated into the rotation. Each fellow also performs a very limited number of additional cross-cover CICU calls per year. CICU call responsibilities include the primary care of all Cardiac Intensive Care Unit patients.

The cardiology fellowship program is supportive of and compliant with all ACGME duty hour standards.

Academic Curriculum

The fellowship prides itself on a robust schedule of protected time education, including formal fellow lectures, cardiology division conferences and hospital-wide conferences. 

Division conferences include Surgical Conference, Catheterization Conference, Journal Club and Critical Event Review. Fellow conferences incorporate a wide variety of both learning modalities and topics and are relevant to both a robust education in pediatric cardiology as well as the pediatric cardiology board examination. Regular fellow conferences include sessions on echocardiography, electrophysiology, cardiac critical care, core book review, surgical techniques and perspectives, pathology, embryology and principles of outpatient management. 

Fellows are also encouraged to attend Pediatric Grand Rounds, Pediatric Professorial Rounds, hospital basic science research lectures and Washington Hospital Center cardiology conferences.