Some basic questions about cardiology in America

[imgyg]

Hi, I'm a doctor in Ireland considering cardiology as a specialty. I want to leave Ireland as the working environment here is poor. I have some questions.

1. How do you specialise in cardiology? Do you need to do a general internal medicine program first and then get accepted to specialise in cardiology?

2. How long does it take to become a specialist, or attending I believe you call it?

3. What kind of step 1 score is competitive for this job?

4. What are the working hours like as a resident in cardio/IM

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[FreakofMeds]

If you want to work in the US, you have to start from scratch, which means going into a 3 year internal medicine residency, then 3 year cardiology fellowship to practice as a general cardiologist. It would also take an additional 1-2 years to become specialized in interventional or EP.

It's a daunting task especially for international grads. You have to accept that American grads will always be preferred over international grads, even if said international grad on paper appears to be significantly better than an American grad, which is understandable to some extent.

Lately, residency in any specialty has become competitive including the internal medicine residencies due to the rapid increase in American medical grads and the limited number of residency slots. You have to hope that your internal medicine residency is good enough to make you competitive for a cardiology fellowship application.

I would say at this point in time, step 1/2 Score needs to be +240 to start having interviews as an IMG with no connections. Scores in the 250s are preferable. Additionally, the longer you are away from graduation date, the less likely you are to get an interview or match.