Pediatric Cardiology Fellowship Programs

[happyfeet814]

Hi all,

So I am interested in applying for pediatric cardiology fellowship. I was wondering considering a variety of different programs. I was wondering if someone could shed light on comparing Children's Hospital of Wisconsin and Hopkins fellowship programs. I am looking fro a medium sized program but with adequate surgeries and exposure. It appears Hopkins does about 300 surgeries while Wisconsin does about 700. Any thought/comments?
Thank you all for your input.

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[J-Rad]

Hi all,

So I am interested in applying for pediatric cardiology fellowship. I was wondering considering a variety of different programs. I was wondering if someone could shed light on comparing Children's Hospital of Wisconsin and Hopkins fellowship programs. I am looking fro a medium sized program but with adequate surgeries and exposure. It appears Hopkins does about 300 surgeries while Wisconsin does about 700. Any thought/comments?
Thank you all for your input.

That's a really hard question to answer. Very few people are going to be intimately familiar with more than one program from the perspective of a trainee. Both of those programs have excellent reputations. One problem you are going to encounter is that opinions about "other" programs often are going to be based on rumors and speculation and may not lend an accurate picture of a given program you are intersted in. The best impressions are going to be from your interviews. I ended up going to a program (smaller end of mid-sized) that I fell in love with on interview day but wasn't all that interested in prior to that. I had also been told that they didn't have a surgeon (they had had a brief period without a surgeon about a year prior to being told that) and that they weren't really a clinically focused program, rather more research oriented (while the latter is true, the former isn't IMO).

 

[happyfeet814]

Thank you so much. I really appreciate your input.

 

[Stitch]

I met a lot of people in the PCICU when I interviewed for PICU fellowships. They were great people, and I know the clinical outcomes of hearts at Wisconsin are very good. I can't speak from the standpoint of a cardiology fellow, but the institution is really good.

 

[michigangirl]

I'm at Hopkins and have seen 10 years of cardiology fellows come in and out of our program. In fact, I'm sitting here providing anesthesia for a peds cardiac cath case-- our attending cardiologists are fabulous-- from a clinical and personal standpoint, the fellows get great exposure to all facets of peds cardiology, including the fellow working on the patient right now ;-). When I was a peds resident the peds cards fellow ran the show, and now as PICU attending the cards fellows are the go-to for our peds CVICU patients, and are very well supported by their attendings. Although our surgery numbers are lower than Univ. Wisconsin, the number of fellows leads to very high volume exposure to post-surgical patients.

Obviously only one perspective, as others pointed out will usually be the case. Good luck.

 

[happyfeet814]

Thank you all for your input. So on what basis should a program be considered/not considered, as far as pediatric cardiology is concerned?

 

[J-Rad]

Thank you all for your input. So on basis should a program be considered/not considered, as far as pediatric cardiology is concerned?

I think you mistyped your question and left out the item(s) to be considered.

 

[happyfeet814]

fixed it..i meant on what basis should a program be considered, as in what are teh parameters that one should be looking for