Interventional Fellowship

The Interventional Cardiology Fellowship at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center provides one year of training in this subspecialty, beginning in July of of each year. Training includes laboratory experience, on-call exposure, one half-day every week outpatient exposure, teaching residents and cardiology fellows, didactic conferences, a research project, and a course of study designed to qualify the applicant to sit for the Interventional Cardiology Subspecialty Boards. Case volumes in excess of 400 per year can be expected and involve treatment of patients with ischemic heart disease, valvular heart disease, congenital cardiac disorders, and cardiomyopathy. Experience in peripheral intervention is also available in the Cardiac Cath Lab and in collaboration with Vascular Surgery and Interventional Radiology.

A full range of medical and surgical Cardiac Services, with the exception of heart transplantation, is provided at DHMC. Cardiac interventional cases number in excess of 1,400 per year.

Above: Interventionalist, Aaron Kaplan, with cardiology fellow, Roger Chan.

The Division of Cardiology at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center consists of 27 Cardiologists, including 7 interventional cardiologists. The Cardiac Catheterization Laboratories consist of four catheterization rooms and one dedicated electrophysiology room. Training in coronary procedures includes diagnostic angiography, pressure wire, intravascular ultrasound (IVUS), balloon angioplasty, stenting, rotational atherectomy, and the use of distal protection devices. Valvular procedures include transseptal catheterization, aortic, mitral, and pulmonary valvuloplasty. Other cardiac procedures include endomyocardial biopsy, alcohol septal ablation, PFO and ASD closure, and use of vascular access closure devices. An interventional pediatric cardiologist assists in the evaluation and treatment of congenital heart disease. Peripheral interventions include renal, carotic, subclavian and both supra and infra-inguinal revascularizations.

Above: Interventional Cardiolgy fellows 2005-2006. Top row left to right: Jonathan Sherman, John Robb (Cath Lab Director), and Michael Duong. Bottom Row: James Devries and Dmitri Baklanov.

Research opportunities include access to an extensive procedure and outcomes data base of more than 35,000 cases and collaboration within the Northern New England Cardiovascular Disease Study Group, stent and coronary device trials, pharmaceutical trials, and clinical and bench research in angiogenesis.

The fellowship year will consist of dedicated time in the cardiac catheterization laboratories performing cases, on-call exposure to emergency cases usually involving direct percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in acute myocardial infarction, a small amount of outpatient time, inpatient rounds on interventional patients, interventional consultations, a research project, and conferences. The responsibility for bi-weekly interventional conferences will be divided between the interventional fellows.

Candidates for an interventional fellowship should be Board-Certified or Eligible in Cardiology, and have completed a three-year Cardiology fellowship at an ACGME-accredited institution. Candidates should have completed at least six months of training in the cardiac catheterization laboratory (COCATS level 2 training), and have a recommendation from the director of the cardiac catheterization laboratory where this training took place.