Academic Cardiology Fellowship Match Competitiveness

[Anonymous Lurker]

Hello all,

I am a fourth year medical student (USMD) who is interested in pursuing a cardiology fellowship. I fell down my rank list and will be attending a mid tier (~T50) academic internal medicine residency program with a reasonably strong in-house fellowship program. My goal for my career is to remain in academics and conduct research while practicing (or at the very least I want to keep that option open). As such I am interested in completing a cardiology fellowship at an academic institution with a lot of research opportunities preferably, at a larger city in the south (ie Emory, UAB, UTSW, Vanderbilt, etc). My step 2 score was ~255 and I will have 1 ACC abstract and 1 cardiology manuscript prior to starting residency.

Given what I've shared, do you think that this a realistic goal, and if so, what can I do to hit the ground running? I have heard that the reputation of your residency program is the most important factor that determines where you end up doing fellowship and I'm wondering if I should be tempering my expectations in light of my match results. Thanks in advance!

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[1713938018]

It really depends on the program you're at. You should have a match list of where people matched from your program. Pay attention to where your upper level residents interview-this should help get an idea of what might be realistic. Fellowship programs do already have a bias on im programs- and that's unfortunately unlikely to change very much even if you have a competitive application coming from a smaller place.

The programs you listed may be hard to get to. They are selective. The cardiology match is very competitive.

To best position yourself, you'll need to crush it as a im resident and intern with no red flags. It's quite important to get glowing reviews thru residency. If you dropped down your rank list, you need to evaluate why that might be (ie application, scores, personality, extracurriculars, red flags?).

Research during residency will be necessary as is making contacts in your own department that might be able to reach out to larger programs if you ultimately want to leave.

Position yourself perfectly and the rest falls into place. You can only control so many things. Might as well aim as high as possible and see. There are a lot of good cards programs out in the south besides the ones you named.

 

[Anonymous Lurker]

It really depends on the program you're at. You should have a match list of where people matched from your program. Pay attention to where your upper level residents interview-this should help get an idea of what might be realistic. Fellowship programs do already have a bias on im programs- and that's unfortunately unlikely to change very much even if you have a competitive application coming from a smaller place.

The programs you listed may be hard to get to. They are selective. The cardiology match is very competitive.

To best position yourself, you'll need to crush it as a im resident and intern with no red flags. It's quite important to get glowing reviews thru residency. If you dropped down your rank list, you need to evaluate why that might be (ie application, scores, personality, extracurriculars, red flags?).

Research during residency will be necessary as is making contacts in your own department that might be able to reach out to larger programs if you ultimately want to leave.

Position yourself perfectly and the rest falls into place. You can only control so many things. Might as well aim as high as possible and see. There are a lot of good cards programs out in the south besides the ones you named.

Thank you so much for taking the time to answer!

 

[cards67]

Your career goals are doable coming from pretty much any fellowship program and there are great programs all over the country. For now, keep building that resume and be an excellent resident. When the time comes, apply broadly and see what happens. You should have no problem matching somewhere based on your current stats.

 

[NewYorkDoctors]

not a cardiologist but have seen plenty of residents AMG and IMG match and fail to match

your baseline stats are very solid and as an AMG you have a very good chance
but it's not automatic
also "connections with cardiology faculty are not automatic"

be active. be proactive. be a good IM resident but don't go out of your way to be a "superb internist." Dont waste your time and effort trying to "master MKSAP or the opthalmologic exam because some old internist said it's a dying art," doing IM stuff like quality improvements, schmoozing the nurse managers, or those IM things.
Just do a good job for the hospitalists and on CCU and get the impression of a good team member who gets the job done for the attendings.
You need to dedicate your time and energy to the cards faculty.

Don't "go home early." "stay late after school" and meet the cardiology faculty.
if no early CCU or cards rotations ask your IM PD or other IM staff to get you a meeting with whichever cards faculty has research. they always have things going on with fellows and attendings. offer to do any and all scholarly activity
get the cards faculty PubMed citations (even if a lowly case manuscript to start). that is the academic currency you want to get for them
be proactive and get after it
A competitive cards fellowship will not make its way to you (short of nepotism and connections)