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Cardiology

Fellowship Program

The Division of Pediatric Cardiology at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, in conjunction with the Division of Pediatric Cardiothoracic Surgery, provides state-of-the-art care of the infant, child, adolescent and young adult with congenital heart disease. The Heart Center, which includes all medical and surgical services, is located in NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital, the only children's hospital in New York City. Attending physicians also have offices and provide in-hospital consultation at numerous locations in Manhattan, Westchester, Rockland, and Nassau counties, as well as New Jersey and Connecticut.

The Division includes 42 pediatric cardiologists, 22 of whom are full-time physicians at Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, many of whom also serve outreach programs, and 24 clinical faculty who also serve at affiliated programs. In addition to the practice of general pediatric cardiology, members of the faculty have expertise in the subspecialty areas of echocardiography (fetal, transthoracic, transesophageal and intracardiac); cardiac MRI imaging; exercise physiology; arrhythmia/electrophysiology; pulmonary hypertension; heart failure and heart transplantation; preventive cardiology; cardiac critical care; adult congenital/structural heart disease; and interventional cardiology.

Attending physicians have academic appointments in the Department of Pediatrics of Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons as well as with Weill Cornell Medical College. The faculty actively pursues research interests in all of the above areas of clinical practice. In addition, basic science research in the areas of ventricular function, hypercholesterolemia, heart failure, pharmacology, electrophysiology and non-invasive imaging modalities is ongoing.

Pediatric cardiology fellows are an integral part of all the services provided by the division. The goal of the fellowship program in the Division of Pediatric Cardiology is the training of pediatric cardiologists who are academically oriented. The three year program fulfills the requirements for sub-board certification under the American Board of Pediatric guidelines. There are five pediatric cardiology fellows each year. The first two years involve intensive clinical training two week blocks consisting of five core rotations including: 1) cardiac ICU services (pediatric ICU and neonatal ICU); 2) general inpatient cardiology service; 3) cardiac catheterization and electrophysiology; 4) echocardiography and 5) noninvasive testing (exercise testing, electrocardiograms, holter monitors and tilt table testing). At the end of the 2 year clinical training, fellows should have completed a total of 3-4 months of cardiac ICU service; 3-4 months of general cardiology inpatient service; 6-7 months cardiac catheterization; 5-6 months of echocardiography and 3-4 months of noninvasive testing. Each fellow also has 1 elective month per year for the first 2 years of fellowship.

The core of the training in outpatient care is a weekly clinic run by staff physicians and attended by fellows on a rotating basis. They assume the care of their own patients whom they follow over the time period of their clinical responsibilities.

Clinical research projects are encouraged during the first two years of fellowship with each fellow having chosen a specific area of interest by the end of the second year. More specialized areas of interest to which he/she will have been exposed include pediatric cardiac transplantation, electrophysiology, pulmonary hypertension, preventive cardiology and basic science.

The third year is devoted to research with the minimal clinical responsibilities. The fellow may choose either a basic science or clinical project. During the third and possibly fourth year, the fellow works under the direction of a specific attending to guide them in their research. For one month of the third (and fourth) year the fellow is on service as a junior attending.

The education of our fellows is of paramount importance. This is accomplished by their participation in the delivery of high quality patient care, as well as many weekly conferences which include: pathology, hemodynamics and angiography, echocardiography and electrophysiology. There is a weekly Pediatric Cardiology Grand Rounds lecture, a weekly combined cardiology/cardiovascular surgery conference where cardiac catheterizations and patient management discussions take place and there is a monthly journal club meeting where current articles from peer-reviewed journals are critically reviewed.

The Division of Pediatric Cardiology is under the direction of Dr. William E. Hellenbrand. The Pediatric Cardiology Fellowship Program is under the direction of Dr. Julie A. Vincent. Applications for Fellowship Training at Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center to begin 2011 are available through the Pediatric Cardiology office and can be obtained by calling the Fellowship Coordinator, Lisa Hasenbalg at (212) 342-0610. The program prefers to have all the applications completed by January 31, 2010.