Cleveland Clinic Cardiac Anesthesiology Fellowship Program

[pumpblood]

Any info/advice on how the program is? Any past CCF fellows out there? How does it compare with the likes of Duke, Brigham and Texas Heart?

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[anes121508]

Any info/advice on how the program is? Any past CCF fellows out there? How does it compare with the likes of Duke, Brigham and Texas Heart?

Personally know several who went to ccf and went to one of the others that you mentioned (friends currently at or graduated from the others as well).

Pro: lots of cases, variety, clinically string

Con: covers small vascular cases (even when on call), preop clinic time , Cleveland , not fantastic tee teaching in comparison to places like Bwh

That was two years ago so could have changed. Pm me if you would like. I loved my program.

 

[Arch Guillotti]

Any info/advice on how the program is? Any past CCF fellows out there? How does it compare with the likes of Duke, Brigham and Texas Heart?

Second to none.

 

[dhb]

Second to none.

:troll:

 

[bigdan]

Graduated from CCF ACTA fellowship a couple of years ago.

With the retrospectoscope, it was outstanding training. My first attending job was in an, um, "austere" environment (to put it as kindly as possible). I felt very well prepared for my job, which included OHTxp, LVAD, thoracoabdominals, etc.

While doing the fellowship, I was a bit pissed off. I had just completed a prior year of fellowship training which was OUTSTANDING, and I was given near complete autonomy. CCF is NOT an autonomous, "because the fellow said so" type of training. It's another year of residency. You do Preop Clinic on your call days, before going to the ORs. You set up the rooms (most days). Table up, table down. One day I did a 7x redo with reverse Ross, and the next case was a trach - from the SICU, which is in a completely different part of the hospital...my attending was like "call me when you're in the room". *Sigh* None of that is beneath me, but I was sorta like "Fu&k, man. I already DID residency". All that said, I learned a TON. A TON. It was great training, for me. A ton of echo, extremely complex cases, great faculty. But it is a grind of a year. I would not have come out as strong if I "only" did an echo-based year.

Cleveland gets a bum rap. I had a great time there.

 

[AdmiralChz]

Have had several friends complete ACTA training at CCF. Agree with all said above, it's one of the best recognized names in the field and you cannot go wrong with training there. It's by far the largest training program in the country (~ 20 fellows a year, I believe Duke is next with ~ 13), and it's a busy year. It's the prime example of a "do your own cases" rather than a "supervisory" fellowship, there are pros and cons to each in terms of training and it's a personal decision which model you want to train under. If you do choose a fellowship like CCF, make sure it's at a place that does exceedingly complex cases - there is no residency in the country giving you the same level of complexity CCF fellows see, so it's definitely not a wasted year by any stretch. The same is true for the other programs the OP listed, except perhaps BWH which has a number of surgeons leave a couple of years ago... haven't heard anything about it since

Personally, I was incredibly impressed when I interviewed there. Cleveland is actually much better in recent years (the Lebron effect), and you can live very comfortably on a fellow salary (as opposed to Boston, which is horrendously expensive). I matched at my number one choice, but I would have been very happy with CCF which was my number 2. I interviewed at the other places the OP mentioned.

 

[Twiggidy]

Any info/advice on how the program is? Any past CCF fellows out there? How does it compare with the likes of Duke, Brigham and Texas Heart?

Brigham has great echo teaching

 

[2Fast2Des]

you couldn't go wrong having the #1 cardiac center in the world on your resume even if you never had to go in a single day, bees knees and all

 

[Ezekiel2517]

People who have trained at CCF are probably aware of this, but I think one underrated aspect of the program there is that they have their own oral boards review course, run by actual ABA oral board examiners, free of charge. And you are able to schedule mock oral exams with these examiners one on one as well. Very nice perk.

 

[GasserNtraining]

You do Preop Clinic on your call days, before going to the ORs

Hey Bigdan, Thanks for the info on CCF. I know it's a dumb question but what exactly do you do at the preop clinic?

Thanks!

 

[2Fast2Des]

Hey Bigdan, Thanks for the info on CCF. I know it's a dumb question but what exactly do you do at the preop clinic?

Thanks!

Basically nothing useful that a nurse practitioner couldn't do, assimilate information into the pre-op note and talk to patients

 

[Psai]

Basically nothing useful that a nurse practitioner couldn't do, assimilate information into the pre-op note and talk to patients

Yeah you'd think so but they miss a lot of key stuff, especially basic things like cath reports for a guy with big cardiac history. I think it's a lot more useful coming from people who actually spent time in the OR and know what is important to us.

 

[Laryngophed]

Yeah you'd think so but they miss a lot of key stuff, especially basic things like cath reports for a guy with big cardiac history. I think it's a lot more useful coming from people who actually spent time in the OR and know what is important to us.

The answer to 17 across?

 

[bigdan]

CCF Preop Clinic is as terrible as it sounds.

With the disclaimer that things could have changed since I graduated, during my fellowship year you would show up to PreOp at either 0800 or 1200 (depending on whether you were the Call 1 or Call 2) and just see the steady stream of patients. My particular frustration was that you would do "the usual" - H&P, answer questions specific to the case, explain anesthetic plan, put orders in for blood - but the stuff that I (naively) thought "made me a consultant" would usually be ignored...my sentinel example was we saw a guy for CABG scheduled for the next day. A1c of 13. So I called my staff, recommended to delay case for some degree of glucose control. Nope. Overruled. Was told "Endocrine will just see him postop". WTF am I there for?

Now, I fully admit that I was sorta over training at this point. Fellowship #2, already Anes and CCM boarded, and I'm filling out some useless information that can be obtained by either chart biopsy or 3 minute interview with the pt, or both, only to know that my day ends 16 hrs from later, going from preop clinic to being up all night in the ORs.

I will say that the fellows were a tight knit group, so if I saw a difficult airway or pt who was told they had to get a prior TEE with Peds probe, or if there were some bizarre antibodies in the blood, I'd holler at whomever was assigned that case for the next day to give a heads up; others would reciprocate.

Whatevs.

 

[nimbus]

CCF Preop Clinic is as terrible as it sounds.

With the disclaimer that things could have changed since I graduated, during my fellowship year you would show up to PreOp at either 0800 or 1200 (depending on whether you were the Call 1 or Call 2) and just see the steady stream of patients. My particular frustration was that you would do "the usual" - H&P, answer questions specific to the case, explain anesthetic plan, put orders in for blood - but the stuff that I (naively) thought "made me a consultant" would usually be ignored...my sentinel example was we saw a guy for CABG scheduled for the next day. A1c of 13. So I called my staff, recommended to delay case for some degree of glucose control. Nope. Overruled. Was told "Endocrine will just see him postop". WTF am I there for?

Now, I fully admit that I was sorta over training at this point. Fellowship #2, already Anes and CCM boarded, and I'm filling out some useless information that can be obtained by either chart biopsy or 3 minute interview with the pt, or both, only to know that my day ends 16 hrs from later, going from preop clinic to being up all night in the ORs.

I will say that the fellows were a tight knit group, so if I saw a difficult airway or pt who was told they had to get a prior TEE with Peds probe, or if there were some bizarre antibodies in the blood, I'd holler at whomever was assigned that case for the next day to give a heads up; others would reciprocate.

Whatevs.

99% of the time staffing preop clinic with a physician is a waste of time. That’s why most practices don’t do that.

 

[2Fast2Des]

Yeah you'd think so but they miss a lot of key stuff, especially basic things like cath reports for a guy with big cardiac history. I think it's a lot more useful coming from people who actually spent time in the OR and know what is important to us.

I've honestly never heard of a case cancelled. Although we started a redo TAAR on a patient with platelets in 50-70k, when even before induction the patient asked the surgeon if his platelets should be addressed. Surgeon just brushed it off and and we continued course with the ensuing blood bath.

I thought i would enjoy cardiac but when I realized the monotony of giving the same drugs\lines regardless of pathology day in and day out it drove me insane not having the diversity of a non cardiac case.

But CCF you can definitely get to see some crazy stuff, the volume is certainly there if you can stomach all the other bs that comes with the system from what I understand.

 

[CardiacIntensivist]

Brigham has amazing Anesthesiologist echocardiographers but their cardiac surgery world is a bit in shambles and their volume has dropped tremendously. They will recover but it is going to take some time.

 

[Psai]

Brigham has amazing Anesthesiologist echocardiographers but their cardiac surgery world is a bit in shambles and their volume has dropped tremendously. They will recover but it is going to take some time.

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