cardio, how to

[jackets5]

i will be a second semester carribean student who is interested in cardiology. my question is what is the procedure to get into cardio. i know you need to do a 3 year IM residency then apply to a 2 or 3 year cardio fellowship, correct? What do the fellowships look for in an applicant. will the fact that i went to a carrib school hurt me when applying for a fellowship? do they still look at board scores (step 1 etc.) Also, i heard that you pretty much need to be at a university program in order to match into a cardio fellowship. Any other information would be greatly appreciated. thank you

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[grendelsdragon]

There are a ton of posts and threads in this forum specifically addressing your questions. I would exercise your use of the SEARCH function liberally. You will find what you are looking for.

Good luck.

 

[emcee]

This might help:

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showpost.php?p=267813&postcount=19

wooo;

More specifics about Cardiology. I also was sure I didn't want to do primary care but opted for IM residency so I'd have Fellowship options. I just matched in Cardiology starting in 2002. As was mentioned in an ealier post, there are several subspecialty options available after IM. Cardiology and GI are very competitive. (Most medicine subspecialties are becoming more competitive as the push for primary care wanes...) >2000 applications for CV last year for 350 positions nation-wide.

If you're sure you want cards, there are things you can do to improve your odds: Board scores and medical school performance play some role but aren't as important as what you've done since graduation from med school. It'll help if you match in a competitive IM program (and certainly a University based program: most program directors feel community programs in IM are geared to produce generalists, whether it's true or not). Also, research is very important: start now! You'll need to get published. It's not terribly difficult to get an abstract published or to do a poster presentation at a nat'l mtg. However, most residents that applied from my residency program didn't start soon enough to get this done. If you can get out a manuscript, it'll be a significant boost to your application and CV. Some forth year students from my program are getting involved in some research projects now. Get in touch w/ a CV fellow or attending that you know to hook up w/ a project; they'd prob'ly love the help and will include you as a co-author.

Doing something above the call-of-duty will help. Some CV programs I interviewed at primarily offered interviews to only Chief Residents. Others looked for masters degrees or PhD's.

Recommendation letters are important: Ask the Cardiology program director from your SOM to write you a letter. Do a rotation w/ them, do reseach w/ them. Be sure to ask if they'll write you a strong letter of support. If not, don't get one from them. Strong letters may get you in the door, weak letters will kill your chances.

Also, many programs will take internal canidates. So consider doing your IM residency where you'd be interested in getting your CV training. Then all you have to do is kick-ass during residency and particularly during your CV rotations.

Good luck