Cardiology Fellowship..

Those are sub-subspecialties.

Cardiovascular Disease is the general 3-4 year fellowship in cardiology. You usually pick a concentration during that time. You can pick interventional cardiology, electrophysiology, CHF, preventive medicine, etc.

If you plan on doing interventional, electrophysiology, or CHF treatment, then you can do an extra year of fellowship to get a certificate in that sub-subspecialty.

So, the gist is that you must do a cardiovascular disease fellowship before you can do an interventional cardiology training year.

 

Medical Student Survival Guide

It is out of print. I found a copy in the school library after reading a thread about it. The author is very cynical, and the book is depressing. His top specialty picks are Radiology, Anesthesiology, Pathology, Cardiology, and I think there is one other I'm forgetting. In the book, he says he only listed cardio for the people that still want to feel like "real doctors". But rads, anes, and path are the real winners. He picks these according to compensation, political power, lifestyle, and low patient contact.

 

A good book to consider for learning more about specialties and the process of seeking them is Iserson's Getting into a Residency. Not only does it provide good descriptions of the various career options, but it also provides excellent advice for medical students to make the most of their four years. Iserson is pretty thorough and I thought it was well worth the read.


About Preventive Cardiology...how would one go about seeking that sort of specialty? I know that you first must do a 3 year residency in IM and then a 3-4 year fellowship in Cardiology. I guess my question is: Are there specific fellowships that focus on preventive cardiology or is preventive cardiology something that you specialize in after completing a fellowship in cardiology?

Any clarifications would be greatly appreciated.

 

Preventative cardiology is just cardiologists who choose not do procedures. They do the same fellowship that regular cardiologists do, but they just push statins and fibrates all day (kind of a waste of a 6 yr residency and fellowship training in my opinion). I worked with a preventative cardiologist who did a special fellowship in lipid metabolism, and his fellowship lasted 5 yrs with research included (plus the 3 yr medicine residency). He sees patients once per week and does research all of the other days.

 

ckent, so this cardiologist did not focus at all on dietary/lifestyle changes? what you described didnt' seem all that different from non-interventional cardiology. my understanding of preventive cardiology encompassed a little more than fibrates and statins, i.e. Dean Ornish/Gerald Reaven/etc. So, to narrow it down a bit more...how are noninterventional cardiologists and preventive cardiologists different? How are they similar? Much appreciation.

souljah

 

I think the best way to pick your specialty is to first figure out those fields that you'd never go into. For example, I've ruled out FP, Pediatrics, Psychiatry, Geriatrics, Hem/Onc, and pretty much any surgical specialty, etc as fields that I have no interest in. I think once you do that, you're left with a pretty reasonable list to pick your specialty from. Good luck.

PS: Souljah, I believe non-interventional cardiologists refer to those who don't do the more invasive and risky procedures such as angioplasties and stent placements... Not sure about preventive cardiologists. Sorry I can't be of more help.

 

If you truly love your career, then you won't mind all the hours.

Nearly all physicians will spend 60-80 hours/week working. Even those traditionally considered as having better hours will still average at least 50-60 hours per week.

 

10 years into your practice, you should be at the level of partner. If so, then you can dictate your own hours. You could work only one morning per week if that pleases you... or you could work hard for 10 years and then retire.

 

Souljah,
I worked with a preventive cardiologist after my first year of med school, and he didn't do a whole lot in terms of lifestyle change. He would refer patients to our wellness center, which has dietitians and exercise physiologists, but he did very little counseling on nutrition or exercise himself. He basically did a quick physical exam, played with the patient's meds based on the side effects he or she was having and the desired changes in lipids, and referred for everything else. He was also big into research, though, and only had clinic 2 mornings a week. The rest was research time (mostly on CRP and inflammation and heart disease). Maybe non-academic preventive cardiology would be different.

 

On a side note, does anyone know how non-invasive cardiologists get paid so much compared to internists (avg 220,000)? No offense to the non-invasive cardiologists and the wannabe's out there, but it seems to me that anyone can up a dosage someone's statin.

 

Stress testing
Echocardiography
Pacemaker monitoring
Nuclear Imaging