I'm sure this has been covered before numerous times, but there's no recent thread about program rankings. Particularly interested in interventional. From what I've been told, these are the best programs:
1) Texas Heart
2) Columbia
3) Duke (although I have no interest in a 4 year general cardiology program)
4) Mayo
5) MGH
6) Hopkins
7) Cleveland Clinic
Is this the general consensus?
If you're interested in intervention, its not just sufficient to consider "reputation" in the academic sense. Clinical volume for procedures is key, as is the option to get training in structural or peripheral interventions - with the way things are going in intervention, it will be near impossible to do this without an additional year of training (for structural anyway). You'll also want to look at how much autonomy fellows get, particularly with the newer procedures - some places with structural fellowships you'll still wind up just watching the attending for a year, while a few placed will actually train you. Given these considerations I would say the best fellowships are:
1) Columbia - tremendous procedural volume, topnotch academic rep, the primary site for many of the major device related trials, good autonomy, has dedicated peripheral or structural year, and little if any scut.
2) Cleveland Clinic / Texas Heart - Large volume and very experienced attendings, involved in some research, unsure about autonomy, unsure about a dedicated 2nd year, unsure about level of scut but for the general fellowship I believe its high as they do not have strong medicine residency programs.
3) Cedars Sinai / Mt. Sinai in New York - these were not on your list but are among the busiest labs in the nation and will get you really good training; Also good academic reputations in the interventional world; I don't believe they have dedicated structural / peripheral years however; unsure about autonomy;
4) Washington Hospital Center - huge volume center with a good academic rep, experienced with all the latest and greatest techniques.and should definitely be on your list
5) MGH - Obviously top notch academic rep in general, but I think volume may be somewhat of an issue compared to the places above. Dedicated 2nd year is available; Research in interventional cardiology is not a specific strong point.
6) Duke - Great academic rep overall, reasonable volume though not as high as the places listed above, great autonomy; would put higher if your goal is an academic job, rather than just becoming a great proceduralist.
7) Mayo - high volume (though not as high as they used to be), dedicated 2nd year of training. I hear autonomy is seriously lacking.
8) Beth Isreal Deaconess - Pretty good volume when comparing the boston programs; good rep; they're the primary site for the CoreValve trial.
Regarding hopkins and brigham, obviously top notch academic programs with overall great research programs. Neither is known as a great, high volume cath lab however. If your goal is a high-powered academic position its worth considering more strongly, but your clinical volume will not be as good as elsewhere. Interventional resaerch is greater at brigham than hopkins.
Other program worth considering: Scripps Green in La Jolla - home of Eric Topol and Paul Tierstein - very high volume program with a great rep in the interventional world. Not sure about level of autonomy but I would imagine its pretty good.
Most of the other places generally thought of as "top" cardiology programs overall do not have busy interventional labs that live up to the general reputation.
