Duke Cardiology

[VCMM414]

Anyone hear about the multiple recent hirings of Duke cardiologists by UMiami? Pascal Goldschmidt, the current UMiami dean and the former Duke dept of medicine chairman, seems to be working his magic. I understand that Harry Phillips, the director of Duke's interventional cardiology program, is among those going to Miami. How does this affect the future of Duke cardiology (not much, I would imagine... top programs always seem to regroup quickly following faculty exodus)?

Also, can anyone comment on how Duke came to be a top cardiology program? Were there some landmark achievements that helped propel the department? Or perhaps big name cardiologists who established their names at Duke? We all know of the renowned cardiologists at places like the Brigham, MGH, CCF, or even Emory. As a program that is supposed to be on the same level as those previously mentioned, what makes Duke great? Who are the past and current bigwigs there?

Thanks in advance for the help.

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[chatstew]

I dont know much about Duke Cardiology except for the notion that it is reputed.

But it was interesting to see what pascal goldschmidt has published while at Duke or before that: not much!! But my pubmed skills could be rusted. Would anyone repeat a search on pubmed to see his research profile.

It wd be interesting to know how Duke came about to be this academic powerhouse in cardiology:I bet DCRI has a big role to play in this .

 

[VCMM414]

A VERY quick PubMed search for "Goldschmidt-Clermont PJ" yielded >140 publications, 7 in this year alone. That seems like more than a fair amount to me, but I'm admittedly inexperienced in these things.

 

[TommyGunn04]

Also, can anyone comment on how Duke came to be a top cardiology program? Were there some landmark achievements that helped propel the department? Or perhaps big name cardiologists who established their names at Duke? We all know of the renowned cardiologists at places like the Brigham, MGH, CCF, or even Emory. As a program that is supposed to be on the same level as those previously mentioned, what makes Duke great? Who are the past and current bigwigs there?

Duke has long been viewed as a powerhouse of clinical research in cardiology, and viewed as one of the top fellowship programs in the country. We have some huge names from many of the "mega-trials" in cardiology. The current director of the Duke Clinical Research Institute is Bob Califf, who is commonly said to be the 6th or 7th most-cited author in medicine today. There's also Chris Granger, of the GRACE risk model, OASIS, CHARM, CARDINAL, GUSTO, etc. etc. trials. And there are a number of influential interventionalists, electrophysiologists, and pioneers of cardiac imaging (Duke has its own dedicated cardiac MRI, and the images are interpreted by cardiologists only, not radiologists). It's a truly phenomenal division.

Here's a list of the faculty: http://cardiology.duke.edu/modules/div_cv_faculty/index.php?id=1

I don't know much about the history, unfortunately. Anyone else care to weigh in?

 

[VCMM414]

And there are a number of influential interventionalists, electrophysiologists, and pioneers of cardiac imaging (Duke has its own dedicated cardiac MRI, and the images are interpreted by cardiologists only, not radiologists).

Can you elaborate on the "dedicated cardiac MRI?" Do you mean it's not shared with outside institutions/private physicians?

 

[chatstew]

Wow. what a difference a last name can make. Goldschmidt is only one half of his last name...
I feel so ******ed

 

[Apollyon]

Can you elaborate on the "dedicated cardiac MRI?" Do you mean it's not shared with outside institutions/private physicians?

It's not shared with the rest of Duke. Not to conflict with TommyGunn, but, when I was there, I was under the belief that cardiology paid their own cardiac-MRI-fellowship trained radiologist to read their cardiac MR's ONLY.

There are 7 (I think) MRI's at Duke (3 clinical and 4 research, or some such), and there was a day when all were down for some reason or another. Radiology asked Cardiology if they could borrow Cards' MRI - and Cards said "no".

 

[TommyGunn04]

Can you elaborate on the "dedicated cardiac MRI?" Do you mean it's not shared with outside institutions/private physicians?

No, I meant that it's entirely run by the cardiology division, used only for cardiac MRI and cardiac research purposes. In other words, it's not at all accessible by radiology, and is not used for any other purpose besides cardiac MR and cardiology functions. It's up on the 7th floor and not used at all by radiology. There's an imaging fellowship in Duke cardiology, and the fellows are trained to read cardiac MR/stress studies via this machine. So the "cardiac-MRI-trained" reader mentioned above was likely a cardiologist, not a radiologist.

 

[PHD_2007]

Anyone have a list (or at least a website) of the top residency programs in cards?

 

[tibor75]

Anyone have a list (or at least a website) of the top residency programs in cards?

It doesn't exist. Furthermore, there really is no such thing. All programs have strengths and weaknesses.

When looking for a good program, keep a few things in mind:

1. If you're interested in a sub-specialty within cards, go to a program that has that subspecialty - otherwise, you'll have to leave no matter what

2. Stable political environment. This is impossible to predict (look at Baylor). Don't worry about the change of a Chief. These things happen everywhere and are impossible to predict. In a lot of places, a change in the Chief really won't affect the fellows at all.

3. Make sure the fellows are happy. If they aren't, you probably won't be as well.

4. Make sure you know what the call is like. Inhouse, out of house, how often, do you get paid, do you get the next day off, do you have attending backup, etc etc

 

[E Yorrick Davis]

Anyone have a list (or at least a website) of the top residency programs in cards?

There is no list that rates the program training specifically, but there is a list from US News & World that ranks the cardiology/cardiothoracic departments in the hospitals themselves.

The list is based on a number of factors, and it is at best a rough approximation. Wouldn't hang my hat on it but still makes for good coffee talk on SDN.

1. Cleveland Clinic
2. Mayo
3. Johns
4. MGH
5. Brigham
6. Texas Heart/St. Luke's
7. Duke
8. NY Presbyterian Columbia/Cornell
9. UCLA
10. Barnes Jewish
11. Stanford
12. William Beaumont
13. U Penn
14. UAB
15. Emory
16. University Medical Center, Tucson
17. Cedars Sinai
18. UCSF
19. Washington Hospital Center, DC
20. Banner Good Samaritan, Phoenix
21. Christ Hospital, Cincinnati
22. U Mich
23. Lehigh Valley Hosp
24. Sarasota Memorial, FL
25. Inova Fairfax Hospital, Falls Church, VA

You can see the rest at this link:

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/health/best-hospitals/rankings/specihqcard.htm

The link explains how the list is calculated in great detail as well.

 

[west coasted]

The US News ranking system is worthless in approximating the ranking of training programs. In other threads people have already stated that programs are ranked based on a number of factors including faculty reputation, the training program itseflf, research, and specific strengths in sub-specialty fellowships. In general you can tier the academic medical centers (with an emphasis on research) as follows:

Top Tier (definite):
MGH, Brigham, Hopkins, Duke, UCSF

2nd Tier:
UPenn, Columbia, WashU, Cleveland Clinic, Stanford

3rd Tier:
Beth Israel, Mount Sinai, Cornell, UW, UTSW, Mayo, UMich, Emory, Texas Heart

Some of these programs are better for clinical training, some for research, and some for specific sub-specialty training. However, all of them are extremely competitive to get into, particularly those with desirable locations. I would say that Duke and CC stand out as the best clinical training programs, whereas Hopkins, Brigham and MGH are the best research institutions. Keep in mind that 75% of the fellows at Duke/CC go into private practice, which is much higher than Brigham/MGH/Hopkins.

 

[chatstew]

The US News ranking system is worthless in approximating the ranking of training programs. In other threads people have already stated that programs are ranked based on a number of factors including faculty reputation, the training program itseflf, research, and specific strengths in sub-specialty fellowships. In general you can tier the academic medical centers (with an emphasis on research) as follows:

Top Tier (definite):
MGH, Brigham, Hopkins, Duke, UCSF

2nd Tier:
UPenn, Columbia, WashU, Cleveland Clinic, Stanford

3rd Tier:
Beth Israel, Mount Sinai, Cornell, UW, UTSW, Mayo, UMich, Emory, Texas Heart

Some of these programs are better for clinical training, some for research, and some for specific sub-specialty training. However, all of them are extremely competitive to get into, particularly those with desirable locations. I would say that Duke and CC stand out as the best clinical training programs, whereas Hopkins, Brigham and MGH are the best research institutions. Keep in mind that 75% of the fellows at Duke/CC go into private practice, which is much higher than Brigham/MGH/Hopkins.

This looks more like a ranking of internal medicine departments.

I'd probably shift CC and Stanford to tier 3/2b for research volume and rigor. Mayo wd be more like 2b. I'll keep texas heart in tier 3 as though they seem to big in heart surgery, their cardiology division doesnot seem to be as great. And Beth Israel and Mt Sinai in tier 3 beats me... more like tier 4. Wash U/Barnes wd be more like tier 3 or 2b. UCSF shd be in tier 2(!)- to be honest they dont even have the right "n" of faculty members in their cardiology division to qualify as tier 1....... ( that logic is dumb though)

Interstingly there is no mention of UAB here: they seem to have a robust program in CV epidemiology and molecular cardiology.

Any thoughts on UCLA????

If one were to consider clinical training/reputation the list may look a lot different.


Could anyone try to come up with a ranking for clinical training? Or else profiling weaknesses of various clinical training programs wd be fine. It would be interesting to see what fellows/residents from tier 1 would have to say...