family friendly cardiology program

[velouria]

does it exist? relatively speaking, of course.

obviously demands are inherent in the field but some programs are clearly more demanding than others in terms of hours, call, patient census, etc.
how does your program rank? what about others that you interviewed at or have heard about?

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[liveinsea]

To be honest, all the programs are family friendly. But try to get into those programs where the current fellows have a big family.

 

[dragonfly99]

To be honest, all the programs are family friendly. But try to get into those programs where the current fellows have a big family.

that's not necessarily true. If you are male, most are fine w/you having kids. For women, not so much. I think it may be better to be in a large program, with more people to take call. That way if someone is out on paternity or maternity leave, it's less of an imposition on others. Also, programs vary a lot in terms of call (in house versus not, frequency, and whether you do all of your call in the first year or two or do more during 3rd year also). Also, program directors and faculty vary in their treatment of fellows - do they see you as a junior colleague, or more of someone to get work of, etc.

 

[nope80]

bump - any other comments?

 

[EPADHA]

that's not necessarily true. If you are male, most are fine w/you having kids. For women, not so much. I think it may be better to be in a large program, with more people to take call. That way if someone is out on paternity or maternity leave, it's less of an imposition on others. Also, programs vary a lot in terms of call (in house versus not, frequency, and whether you do all of your call in the first year or two or do more during 3rd year also). Also, program directors and faculty vary in their treatment of fellows - do they see you as a junior colleague, or more of someone to get work of, etc.

very true. I think it all comes down to how much work there is that needs to be done by fellows, and many places still have the old school mentality that the faculty are doing fellows a favor by letting them train there.

 

[EPADHA]

does it exist? relatively speaking, of course.

obviously demands are inherent in the field but some programs are clearly more demanding than others in terms of hours, call, patient census, etc.
how does your program rank? what about others that you interviewed at or have heard about?

In general programs with not a very high volume and >10 fellows will be family friendlier than the traditional powerhorses that dont take many fellows. I think the culture at individual institutions is different for males and females. I think Cleveland, Emory, Mayo etc take >8 fellows every year, and are quite family friendly. I think Loyola, Dartmouth etc are pretty chill as well. Can't say the same for places like Mount Sinai, Montefiore, MGH, UCSF, UAB etc.

I think if you belong to the female gender, go by how many female fellows a program has and how happy they are wrt family life..

Although I am not a female, i think that with a supportive partner and an efficient workstyle you should do well in most programs.

 

[nope80]

Any other family friendly programs?

 

[nope80]

I know that most programs will rearrange schedule so that you are obviously not on cath while pregnant. However, i'm wondering how about if you are pregnant and taking call - and need to rush someone to cath lab? What then??

 

[P Diddy]

I know that most programs will rearrange schedule so that you are obviously not on cath while pregnant. However, i'm wondering how about if you are pregnant and taking call - and need to rush someone to cath lab? What then??

Then the attending, interventional fellow, or the 2nd year will do it, which is appropriate since the patient will likely require an intervention. No one will ask you to scrub into a cath while pregnant; the liability is too great.

p diddy

 

[dragonfly99]

You could cath occasional patients while pregnant, especially with proper shielding. The radiation doses are not that great. But in general they would rearrange your schedule to try to avoid that. Not many people have babies during cardiologist fellowship, either...I'm female and I know one person who did that, and was on a research year @the time. But I think it could be done/can be done at certain programs. At other programs you would bring on a lot of hate. I would 2nd the comment above about looking at programs that already have women in them, and that have larger numbers of fellows in them.

In terms of having to "rush" patients to the cath lab, particularly during night call, and especially if you are at a program that has interventional fellows, they are not going to care much if you are "in" the case or not. The ER is involved in a lot of the "rush" to the cath lab as well and as a 1st or 2nd year fellow, my involvement in the "rushing" someone to the cath lab pretty much involved me quickly driving to the ER, getting the patient to consent and making sure the ER was doing the right stuff (put foley, give heparin bolus, etc.) and then phone the cath lab nurses to make sure they have the room ready. The attending and interventional fellow then swoop in to "do" the case. We were welcomed to scrub in to those cases as a PGY2, but if you are pregnant they would likely be fine with you not doing the case, or standing far away/at end of table where you would get little radiation anyway.

I think getting pregnant as a fellow would be a problem if you want to do interventional, b/c you are likely to miss out on some cath time...it might be an insurmountable problem, but cardiology is still a boys' club and many would look down on that and in general interventional fellowship is a grind, more so than general cardiology fellowship. I'm pretty sure my med school and intern year was worse than an interventional fellowship, but it was kind of a beat-down...and it was a different kind of "hard" than potentially being on Q1 or 2 home call for 2 years.

I also think certain regions of the country are in general more liberal in their interpretations of what is "appropriate" for women to be doing, in terms of career/occupation, and I believe this bleeds over into things like selection of residents and fellows. But that is just my personal opinion and based on my own biases and experiences.