I am interested in learning more about pediatric cardiology...
How many years is the training?
What kinds of things do non-invasive ped cardiologists deal with? How wide is the scope?
Hi,
3 years of peds residency, then 3+ years of cards fellowship (many will do an extra year of fellowship to sub-sub specialize in peds ECHO, invasive cards, electrophysiology, cards ICU, etc). If you want to do non-invasive cards, 3 years will be enough.
After that you'll need to choose what kind of setting you want to practice in ----university or community. For non-invasive cards you could do either. Most major U.S. cities will give you both options. The pay is usually better for community settings.
Non-invasive cardiologists see kids from birth through older adolescents (and often times older people too, because some kids with congenital heart disease will stick with their peds cardiologist well into their 20s until transferring to an adult cardiologist. And if you're interested, there are some programs where you can do your 4th years of fellowship getting training specifically in working with adults who have congenital heart disease. It would be a great path for someone who did a med-peds residency and is interested in cardiology in both kids and adults).
When I worked with non-invasive cardiologists as a resident, it seemed like their clinic days were roughly split between new referrals and established patients. The new referrals were usually for kids with things like murmurs, syncope, palpitations, etc. The established patients were kids with corrected and uncorrected (usually ASDs or VSDs that were going to be closed at a later date) congenital heart disease, arrhythmias (usually SVT), and other things. The non-invasive cardiologists also did hospital consults, which usually was for kids with corrected/uncorrected CHD who had been admitted to the hospital for any number of reasons. A couple examples:
--kid with HLHS who has undergone stage 1 or 2, who is admitted with gastro and the team needs assistance adjusting diuretics
--kid with surgically corrected TOF who is still on cardiac meds admitted with respiratory distress
Some children's hospitals have a dedicated cardiology inpatient service, where cardiologists, fellows and residents take care of kids with cardiac disease.
So overall it seems like there's a pretty wide variety of what you'd do as a non-invasive peds cardiologist.
