Many programs have the 2yr inclusion for their own general fellows where they can tailor their 3 years of gen cards into that 3rd year being tracked into the subspecialty. Ours currently does this for EP only but is going to do it for interventional as well. Candidates that come from outside programs for the EP program here have typically already done the usual full 3 years of general at their own institution.
As long as you fufill the cocats reccomendations for general cardiology training you should still be able to sit for the boards, but your program has to endorse that you have completed this. If they are willing to endorse you based off of 2 years (and how you constructed them/utilized your elective time) then you may still be able to do the 2+2... most programs, I would wager, would not sign off unless you are rolling into their own subspecialty program so the typical will likely be 4 year combined at a single institution or 5 in total if you change between general and subspecialty training...
who knows where this will all go for interventional once structural and peripheral interventional programs start to proliferated. Could easily invision a 4 year program somewhere with 1&2 being general, 3 being IC, and 4 being periph or structural.
