Structural Heart Disease Fellowship

[BMW M5]

I am starting an interventional fellowship in July of this year. Wanted to see if anyone has any input on the utility of a second year of training following IC fellowship (i.e. structural heart disease). I should have good numbers for coronaries (~ 350 PCIs) and peripheral (> 150 peripheral cases). I'll also have exposure to TAVR, LAAO devices & ASD closure devices along with venous work. Mitral clip is rarely done. I am not quite sure I want any more than that. Targeting private practice jobs mostly. Wanted to see how easy it is to be proctored on the job if I have interest in expanding my scope of procedures (I can't seem to justify an extra year of training and missing out on attending income if I'm only interested in doing TAVRs, LAAO devices and maybe ASD closure devices from a structural heart disease standpoint). Would appreciate any input.

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[timpview]

I am starting an interventional fellowship in July of this year. Wanted to see if anyone has any input on the utility of a second year of training following IC fellowship (i.e. structural heart disease). I should have good numbers for coronaries (~ 350 PCIs) and peripheral (> 150 peripheral cases). I'll also have exposure to TAVR, LAAO devices & ASD closure devices along with venous work. Mitral clip is rarely done. I am not quite sure I want any more than that. Targeting private practice jobs mostly. Wanted to see how easy it is to be proctored on the job if I have interest in expanding my scope of procedures (I can't seem to justify an extra year of training and missing out on attending income if I'm only interested in doing TAVRs, LAAO devices and maybe ASD closure devices from a structural heart disease standpoint). Would appreciate any input.

1. With how saturated the structural IC market is I doubt there are a ton of places that will invest the time /energy/risk into proctoring you to the point they’ll credential you..

2. Whatever you don’t learn in fellowship is 10x harder to pick up in the real world

3. You can only do so much as most private practice (and academic ) jobs don’t supply the volume and clinical set up to allow one to crank out coronaries, structural and peripheral. Also that puts you at decent risk from a job security standpoint if you’re biting off a bunch from the get go (more procedures = more complications = more likely you’ll be fired = more likely you can’t get hired because you just got fired)

4. If you want to do structural I would do a fellowship. Job market right now seems saturated for structural with a lot of places desperate for non-structural IC.

5. If in doubt I would start networking or exploring structural fellowships with the caveat being you can decide against it at any point.. I would keep your reservations private (ie, fake being gung ho about it)

 

[BMW M5]

This was very helpful! Thanks for your reply.