Cardiovascular Disease Fellowship Curriculum

The ACGME-accredited Cardiovascular Disease Fellowship is sponsored by Baylor College of Medicine and is based at the Texas Medical Center.

The cardiology fellows have the opportunity to rotate through multiple affiliated training hospitals, all centrally located in the Texas Medical Center, including Ben Taub Hospital (public), Michael E. DeBakey Veteran Affairs Medical Center (public), and Baylor St. Luke's Medical Center/Texas Heart Institute (private). Associated departments, centers and labs include The Winters Center for Heart Failure Research, the Atherosclerosis Laboratory and the Cardiovascular Research Institute. This rich clinical and scientific environment exposes our trainees to diverse patient populations and a broad spectrum of cardiovascular diseases in the world's largest medical center.

Training in cardiology requires that all fellows spend a minimum of three years in training, two of which are core clinical rotations as set by COCATS IV. The third-year rotations include clinical research or further clinical training in the fellow's area of interest in cardiology. Fellows who are interested in pursuing basic or clinical cardiology research in cardiovascular disease will be provided the opportunity to spend an additional one or two years pursuing their research interests with the potential of being hired at the instructor level during their research tenure.

The program gradually increases the fellows’ responsibilities regarding patient care based on the year of training. Fellows are expected to manage patients independently during the last year of training with commensurate supervision from the faculty physician.

The clinical rotations include clinical practice activities, non-invasive imaging, electrophysiology, elective rotations, electrocardiography, stress testing, ambulatory electrocardiographic monitoring, peripheral vascular disease, and the Outpatient Continuity Clinic.

Clinical practice activities consist of nine months and include the following:

• Cardiac Consultation
• Cardiac Care Unit
• Intermediate Care Unit
• Chest Pain Unit
• Cardiothoracic/Cardiovascular Surgery
• Adult Congenital Heart Disease
• Heart Failure/Transplant
• Preventative Cardiovascular Medicine
• Cardiac Rehabilitation and Vascular Medicine

Non-invasive imaging includes the following and lasts seven months:

• Echo and Doppler
• Non-Invasive and PVD
• Nuclear: minimum two months
• Cardiovascular MRI/CTA

• Electrophysiology: two months
• Elective Rotations: two months
• Electrocardiography, Stress Testing, Ambulatory Electrocardiographic Monitoring: two months
• Peripheral Vascular Disease: two months
• Outpatient Continuity Clinic (weekly): 36 months 

Aside for one month of in-house call at Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center/Texas Heart Institute during the first year of fellowship, all other calls (including STEMI call for Ben Taub Hospital and Michael E. DeBakey Veteran Affairs Medical Center) are taken from home.

Fellows participate in a variety of conferences throughout their fellowship. These include:

• Cardiology Noon Conference (weekly)
• EKG Conference (weekly)
• Case Conference (weekly)
• Board Review Series (weekly)
• Research Conference (weekly)
• Interventional Cardiology Conference (weekly)
• EP Conference (weekly)
• Multi-Modality Imaging Conference (bi-monthly)
• Quality Improvement/Morbidity & Mortality Conference (monthly)
• Journal Club (monthly)
• Cardiology Grand Rounds (monthly)

In addition to didactics, “Don’t Miss a Beat” Cardiology Pearls are emailed monthly featuring interesting electrocardiogram, echocardiogram, and cardiac catheterization cases as well as Journal Scans highlighting popular journal articles.