Stress Test and Echocardiogram Certification

[Jeeeper]

Does anyone have any links or other information regarding the requirements to become certified to perform / interpret stress test as an outpatient and to be certified to read echocardiograms as a general internal medicine physician?

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[IMreshopeful]

Does anyone have any links or other information regarding the requirements to become certified to perform / interpret stress test as an outpatient and to be certified to read echocardiograms as a general internal medicine physician?

In order to have cocats 2 echo training you need at least 6-8 months of dedicated echo training and read 300 echos (this is a bare minimum - if you want to be able to read them appropriately you need to read WAY more). You can take the echo boards if endorsed by someone but you can NOT be considered “boarded” unless you have completed a cardiology fellowship.

There are some GIM physicians who were grandfathered into it but pretty much nonexistent in this day/age. Nor do I want a GIM doctor interpreting my family members echo.

Treadmill stress testing is a different issue. There are some GIM folks who do stress ekg but certain not stress echo

 

[Trogghunter]

Technically suboptimal study, poor acoustic windows.....

As a hospitalist, I've been doing brief echos on almost every admit I get with chf, afib rvr, undifferentiated SOB, PE, and during codes if there's a sonosite nearby, for the past 4 years. I order formal studies often, and I am mostly right on EF, major valve problems, effusions, etc it's pretty helpful for me personally, but I'd leave it at that. We don't have enough hands on training to put the images into clinical context.

The money is in stress, but that's too much risk. There's too much subtlety.