Pediatric Interventional Cardiology

[pedspeep2020]

Hi all!

Second year peds resident here likely headed to a NICU fellowship.
But- I'm on cards right now and surprised just how much I like it. Particularly caths.

I understand the job market isnt great for interventional right now. And further, you'd need a 4th year.
In looking at alumni directions of graduating fellows even at places with 4th year cath fellowships, so so so few of them actually end up going into interventional cards.

Is this because the market is so bad? or lack of interest among fellows? or both?
Also-- how competitive are these 4th year interventional fellowships? I'm a DO.

Overall, for all the fellows who go into cardiology with the goals of becoming an interventional cardiologist-- do most just settle for something else because of all the above factors?

thanks in advance for all of your help!!

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[SurfingDoctor]

Hi all!

Second year peds resident here likely headed to a NICU fellowship.
But- I'm on cards right now and surprised just how much I like it. Particularly caths.

I understand the job market isnt great for interventional right now. And further, you'd need a 4th year.
In looking at alumni directions of graduating fellows even at places with 4th year cath fellowships, so so so few of them actually end up going into interventional cards.

Is this because the market is so bad? or lack of interest among fellows? or both?
Also-- how competitive are these 4th year interventional fellowships? I'm a DO.

Overall, for all the fellows who go into cardiology with the goals of becoming an interventional cardiologist-- do most just settle for something else because of all the above factors?

thanks in advance for all of your help!!

The cath field has a poor market because it is incredibly niche and concentrated in places of practice that is resource intensive. You can’t just build a cath lab anywhere, you need the resources and infrastructure. And even though congenital heart disease is the most common genetic disorder, it’s still not that common. The addition of pulmonary hypertension, which is a even rarer disease, doesn’t really help the volume. It’s been this way for sometime. This is all further complicated by the fact that overtime, non-invasive diagnostic tools have gotten better and better, reducing the need for diagnostic caths.

The reason you see few fellows pursue it is because they don’t want to waste time learning a skill that they’ll never use (unless they are able to find a cath job) and most know that if they choose that path, they’ll mostly end up doing general cardiology, so why bother.

All that being said, if you are rotating with a cath doc right now, why not directly ask them your questions about the field?

 

[BigRedBeta]

The only people I know who have gone on to interventional fellowships and subsequently gotten interventional jobs basically had all the assurances in the world that they were going to have an interventional job waiting for them when they were done.

One was a fellow handpicked to stay within their program to fill a fellowship spot that had been left empty for a few years and then take a position for someone who was slowly retiring.

Another friend was essentially the "golden child" of their residency program and adored by the cards group, went away for fellowship with an implied job offer in the division regardless of ultimate interest and fell in love with interventional and they made room for them.

Third person was told their division (for fellowship) was on a hiring freeze (Peds Chairperson was in the process of leaving which is never a good time to try to get hired anywhere), but the division was going to look for another interventionalist if/when they got approval to hire from the yet-to-be-hired Department Chair.

Obviously these are each somewhat extraordinary sets of circumstances but I think illustrates how difficult the job market is.