Training Program in Cardiology
- Introduction
- Training Pathways
- The Medical Centers
- Program Overview
- Application Forms
- Fellowship Documents (current Fellows only)
The Leon H. Charney Division of Cardiology of the New York University School of Medicine offers graduate medical training for the most highly qualified and promising individuals seeking careers as cardiovascular clinicians, educators and investigators. Recognizing the diverse career goals of our applicants and the complexities of modern cardiovascular medicine and research, we offer a choice of highly integrated but conceptually distinct training pathways as part of our ACGME accredited Training Program in Cardiovascular Disease.
Fellowship training is conducted at our multi-institutional campus located between First Avenue and the East River, extending from 23rd to 34th Streets. The training sites include Tisch Hospital of the New York University Medical Center, a private university hospital, Bellevue Hospital, the oldest public hospital in the United States, and the Manhattan Veteran's Affairs Medical Center, a federal institution. This remarkable geographic array constitutes a true "Biomedical Corridor", and uniquely provides the diversity that characterizes the Fellow's experience of the Program.
ACGME accredited programs in Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology and Interventional Cardiology are also available by competitive application for graduates of accredited fellowships in cardiovascular disease who are interested in obtaining additional competence in these spheres.
The following paragraphs offer a general description of the available training pathways in cardiovascular disease at the New York University School of Medicine. Trainees are expected to select a pathway no later than the midway point of the first clinical year. Irrespective of Pathway, all trainees will complete our ACGME-accredited training program in Cardiovascular Disease within the first thirty-six months and be eligible to sit for the ABIM Certifying Examination.
The Clinical Pathway is our traditional three-year training program in cardiovascular disease designed for individuals primarily interested in patient-based careers. The aim of the program is to prepare selected individuals for careers as outstanding clinical cardiologists. During the first two years of training, Fellows gain expertise in the diagnosis and management of a vast array of cardiovascular disorders. Additionally, they obtain the skills necessary to perform and interpret the full range of diagnostic tests required to manage cardiac and vascular diseases, including non-invasive and invasive modalities. Fellows also gain substantial experience with the essentials of clinical investigation, including familiarity with the elements of study design, issues related to human subjects research and patient enrollment, data analysis and interpretation. In the third year of training concentration is centered on a selected field of clinical expertise, most typically in interventional cardiology, clinical electrophysiology, echocardiography, and other non-invasive imaging modalities, and heart failure. All Fellows in this track are required to participate in a substantial research project during their training, which may involve basic, translational or clinical studies. After graduating the majority of Fellows in the Clinical Pathway pursue a fourth year of training in a specific sub-specialty discipline, such as our accredited training programs in Interventional Cardiology and Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology, or they seek advanced training in Non-Invasive Imaging, including echocardiography, nuclear cardiology, CT and MR Imaging. Others go on to obtain positions as consultants and/or educators in cardiovascular disease.
The Clinical Investigator Pathway is a four-year experience designed for individuals interested in embarking upon careers as independent clinical investigators and educators. The initial two years will afford trainees in this pathway the requisite knowledge set and procedural skills to function as excellent consultants in cardiovascular disease. During this phase the Fellow will also identify the mentor(s) who will provide the guidance needed to create a solid foundation for a career in clinical investigation. Under the auspices of the Cardiovascular Clinical Research Center, the Fellow will begin to participate in the various projects ongoing within the Division of Cardiology and formulate an area of investigation that will be intensively pursued thereafter. At the end of the third year in this Pathway, trainees will have completed our ACGME-accredited training program in Cardiovascular Disease and will be eligible to sit for the ABIM Certifying Examination. Those fellows without a prior related masters degree will be candidates for the N.Y.U. Master of Clinical Science Program with its relevant course work in biostatistics and clinical trial design. As part of their training in this pathway, fellows will prepare and submit grant proposals for funding from such agencies as the National Institutes of Health (i.e., a K23 Patient Oriented Training Award) and the American Heart Association.
The Physician-Scientist Pathway is a four year experience designed for individuals interested in embarking upon basic and translational research careers and ultimately establishing independent biomedical research programs. As with all trainees in cardiovascular disease, during their first two years Fellows in this pathway acquire the fundamental clinical knowledge-base and procedural skills to function as outstanding consultative cardiovascular specialists and educators. Moreover, in concert with Divisional faculty members, they begin to formulate a program of laboratory-based investigation that they will pursue during the research component of their fellowship. At the end of the third year in this Pathway, trainees will have completed our ACGME-accredited training program in Cardiovascular Disease and will be eligible to sit for the ABIM Certifying Examination. During the latter phase of training, the Fellow will seek answers to fundamental questions in cardiovascular biology and disease, ideally with bench-to-bedside applications. The research project will be supplemented, depending upon the Fellow's background, with relevant course-work in areas such as molecular and cell biology, immunology, genetics and biomedical ethics. As part of the training for an investigative career, Fellows in this pathway are expected to prepare and submit grants to funding agencies such as the National Institutes of Health and/or American Heart Association.
Bellevue Hospital is a large municipal hospital with a two hundred and fifty year tradition of service and innovative care. It is the flagship hospital of the largest municipal hospital system in the country, the Health and Hospitals Corporation of New York. As such, it is the central referral institution for all of the cardiac surgery and tertiary cardiac care within that system. Bellevue, in which much of the student teaching takes place, is adjacent to the School of Medicine. It is a modern 25-story hospital that opened in 1975 and is referred to locally as "The New Bellevue." Bellevue has undergone continuous improvement, with extensive remodeling and additions, yielding a state-of-the-art tertiary care center with nearly 800 beds and annual admissions of over 27,000 inpatients. Annual outpatient clinic visits number nearly 500,000. Its world-famous Emergency Service provides help for another 100,000 people each year, approximately 50,000 in the Adult Emergency Services, 35,000 in Pediatric Emergency Services, and the remaining 15,000 in Psychiatric Emergency Services. The intensive care floor in which the Coronary Care Unit is situated is a beautiful venue opened in 2005, and the cardiac catheterization and electrophysiology laboratories are entirely new as well.
At Bellevue, the Fellows grapple with the wide variety of severe heart disease unique to a busy city hospital, and supervise the very active Coronary Care Unit and Consultation Service. Daily teaching and work rounds are supervised by the Cardiology Faculty. Rotations through the Stress/Nuclear, Echocardiography and Cardiac Catheterization Laboratories are also major components of the Bellevue experience. In addition, the John Wyckoff Cardiac Clinic provides one venue for the requisite continuity of care training for the Program. The Clinic has recently moved to an I.M. Pei designed state-of-the-art outpatient facility, which opened in mid-2005.
Tisch Hospital of the New York University Medical Center is a modern, private, tertiary-care, acute-care general hospital with over 700 beds. Annually it admits 29,000 inpatients from the community and around the world. Founded in 1882 as the New York Post-Graduate Hospital, it became part of the N.Y.U. Medical Center in 1947. Known then as the University Hospital, it was rebuilt on its present site in 1963, and renamed Tisch Hospital in 1990. The facility contains a large number of important treatment and diagnostic units. The N.Y.U. Medical Center is a focus for a wide spectrum of innovative regional patient care programs, including the Heart Rhythm Center, the Cardiac and Vascular Center, and the Smilow Cardiac Rehabilitation Unit.
Tisch Hospital serves as a major referral center for complex cardiovascular problems and cardiovascular surgery. Large numbers of patients are admitted for cardiac diagnostic studies and for interventional and electrophysiologic procedures. The Fellows participate actively in the evaluation of these patients and assist the attending staff in their management. The bulk of the Fellow's experience at Tisch Hospital derives from rotation through its cinical laboratories where the techniques of interventional cardiology, echocardiography, stress testing, nuclear imaging and clinical electrophysiology are taught. A cardiac care service exposes the Fellow to pre- and post-operative cardiac patients and affords an intensive clinical experience in heart failure.
The New York Harbor ( Manhattan) Veteran's Affairs Medical Center (The NYVAMC or “VA”) h as been integrated into the School's teaching facilities since 1979 and the Training Program in Cardiovascular Disease combined with that of the VA in 2001. The hospital serves 5,000 inpatients annually in 200 beds. Outpatient visits total more than 300,000 annually. It is located next to Bellevue Hospital Center on First Avenue at 23rd Street. The NYVAMC offers a wide range of acute and intermediate medical, surgical, dental, psychiatric, neurological and rehabilitative services, on an inpatient and outpatient basis. Veterans in need of treatment can expect the highest level of care in a wide array of disciplines: internal medicine, psychiatry, neurology, dermatology, cardiology, pulmonary disease, radiology, pathology, general surgery, urology, orthopedic surgery, neurosurgery, ophthalmology, otolaryngology, plastic surgery, thoracic surgery, cardiac surgery and rehabilitation medicine.
The NYVAMC is a designated regional Cardiac Surgery-Angioplasty Center for the Department of Veterans Affairs. It performs all surgical and interventional procedures for veterans referred from New York, New Jersey, and eastern Pennsylvania. The units of the Cardiology Section include the electrocardiography laboratory, the cardiac catheterization and electrophysiology laboratory, the non-invasive laboratory, the coronary care unit, and the basic science research laboratories. An active program in radionuclide cardiology is maintained in cooperation with the Nuclear Medicine division.
At all three hospitals, the trainees work in extremely productive clinical laboratories, in a one-on-one basis as junior colleagues with senior Faculty. The complementary experiences in the three hospitals provide the Fellows with a unique opportunity to study and treat remarkably diverse patient populations with an unusually broad spectrum of cardiovascular disorders in equally diverse systems of healthcare delivery.
First Year Fellows divide their time between the three hospitals, with a relative balance of time spent at each institution. At all three hospitals, a large full-time and part-time attending cardiology staff closely supervises the Fellows in their clinical evaluation of patients, their performance of diagnostic studies, their critical evaluation of data and their management of patients' illnesses.
Second Year Fellows continue as consultants in cardiology at Bellevue Hospital and Veterans Affairs Medical Center and supervise the Coronary Care Units. Two months of elective time are set aside for the pursuit of individually and independently tailored educational endeavor, clinical or bench research, or out-electives. It is expected that second year Fellows will participate in scholarly activity resulting in publication, presentation at national meetings, and/or development of research projects.
Activities for the latter years of fellowship are described above in the individual track descriptions. All Fellows beyond the first two years of training continue their clinical work in general cardiology by participating in on-call schedules, the ambulatory experience, and all the teaching conferences of their area of specialization and those of the Training Program in Cardiovascular Disease in general.
Throughout the three years there is a comprehensive academic program of rounds and conferences. The Fellows participate in regular conferences at the catheterization laboratories, and daily attending rounds in the CCU and on the consult services at Bellevue and the NYVA. Weekly conferences include Cardiology Grand Rounds and Cardiology Journal Club, both attended by the full staff, an Electrophysiology Conference and Grand Rounds of the Department of Medicine. At the very popular Clinical Case Conference the trainees present cases and didactic material for discussion by and the education of the Division as a whole. At the weekly Bellevue Cardiac Clinic (the first Cardiac Clinic established in this country) and the NYVA continuity clinic, the Fellows are supervised in the evaluation and management of outpatients with complex cardiologic problems. A Core Curriculum of two year's duration meets weekly and provides Fellows with a comprehensive overview of basic and clinical cardiology. Emergency Core Lectures over the summer weeks cover topics of acute cardiac diagnosis and care in order to prepare the Fellow for those challenging nights on call. There are special conferences on non-invasive techniques, including the Friday morning Echo Conference, and others centered on cardiac CT and MR imaging.
The Cardiovascular Clinical Research Center, directed by Judith Hochman, MD, a world-renowned researcher in cardiogenic shock and acute coronary syndromes, is a very large and growing organization that actively mentors numerous Fellows in Cardiovascular Disease in the techniques of clinical research. Research programs include studies on reperfusion for acute coronary syndromes, the relative efficacies of revascularization techniques and devices; studies on the relationships between vascular endothelium, blood cells and the molecular and cellular events of atherogenesis; and studies of the molecular biology of cardiac hypertrophy. A large number of clinical studies are concerned with heart failure, new non-invasive techniques, treatment of arrhythmias with radiofrequency ablation and new implantable defibrillators, and evaluations of new pharmacologic agents, and new techniques for transesophageal, intracardiac and intracoronary ultrasonic evaluations of surgery and angioplasty.
In the basic science arena, the new 12-story Joan and Joel Smilow Research Center is slated to open in early 2006. Two floors in this new facility will be dedicated to basic and translational investigation in the area of Cardiovascular Biology. This will include the laboratory of Glenn I. Fishman, MD, Director of the Division of Cardiology and an internationally recognized expert on cardiovascular genetics and arrhythmias; Edward Fisher, MD, PhD, Director of the Marc and Ruti Bell Vascular Biology and Disease Program and an internationally recognized expert in the mechanisms of hyperlipidemia and atherogenesis, as well as the laboratories of Drs. David E. Gutstein and Gergory E. Morley, who have active programs in cardiovascular development, and electrophysiology and arrhythmic mechanisms. These investigators, along with other faculty with primary appointments outside the Division of Cardiology comprise the NYU Program in Cardiovascular Biology. In addition, recruitment efforts to bring several new faculty members into the Cardiovascular Biology Program within the Smilow Research Center are currently underway. These basic science laboratories actively and successfully mentor those trainees interested in developing careers in bench and translational research.
Rotations
A 24 Month Core of Rotations covering all the requisite clinical and course work of ACGME accredited training programs in cardiovascular disease. including:
Cardiac Catheterization Laboratories
Electrophysiology Laboratory
Echocardiography Laboratories
Stress/Nuclear Laboratories
Consultation Services
Coronary Care Units
Vacation
One month of vacation per year (mandatory)
On-Call
Approximately one in seven nights averaged over the initial 2 year period.
Outpatient Experience
~200 hours per year of supervised outpatient management in 4 hour weekly sessions at the Bellevue Cardiology Clinic and/or the VA Cardiac Clinic
Conferences
Attendance is required at all the scheduled conferences of the Division of Cardiology. Fellows present at the Clinical Case Conference and Journal Club in rotation.
Monday: ECG/Electrophysiology Conference, Research Conference
Tuesday: Core Curriculum Conference
Wednesday: Outpatient Lecture series, Research Conference
Thursday: Clinical Case Conference, Cardiology Grand Rounds
Friday: Journal Club
Scientific Meetings
Attendance at one of these major Scientific Meetings per year:
American Heart Association
American College of Cardiology
Heart Failure Society of America
Third Year and Beyond (see descriptions above)
The Outpatient Clinic experience continues.
On-call responsibilities comprise backup call for our first year Fellows or first call for the assigned clinical laboratory (catheterization laboratory, electrophysiology service, etc.)
Presentations at Journal Club and Clinical Case Conference, in rotation.
Presentations of investigational efforts at Cardiology Grand Rounds.
NOTE: The Third Year Fellow must demonstrate continued involvement in Clinical Cardiology (on-call duties, outpatient experience, participation in conferences) in order to satisfy requirements of the American Board of Internal Medicine on Adult Cardiology Training.
Thank you for your inquiry concerning a position as a Fellow in the Training Program in Cardiovascular Disease of the New York University School of Medicine.
Click here to download the Cardiovascular Disease Fellowship Application Form for positions starting July 1, 2007.
Please complete and submit the form along with your curriculum vitae, copies of any abstracts or publications, and a one-page description of your interest in Cardiovascular Disease and your career plans to:
Celica Feliberty
Coordinator, Training Program in Cardiovascular Disease
NYU School of Medicine
550 First Avenue, NB 17 South 5
New York , NY 10016
(212)-263-6587
We also require three letters of recommendation to be submitted with your application, one of which should be from the chief of the applicant's medical service or program director. Letters of recommendation should be addressed to:
Barry P. Rosenzweig, MD
Associate Professor of Mediciine
Director, Training Program in Cardiovascular Disease
New York University School of Medicine
550 First Avenue, NB 17 South 5
New York , NY 10016
Our postmark deadline for your application package (application form, personal statement, curriculum vitae, abstracts and/or publications, and letters of recommendation) is December 15, 2005. Please note that the NYU School of Medicine Training Program in Cardiovascular Disease participates in the National Resident Matching Program.
Best wishes for success in this next phase of your training.
Sincerely,
Barry P. Rosenzweig, M.D., F.A.C.C.
Associate Professor of Medicine
Director, Training Program in Cardiovascular Disease
Leon H. Charney Division of Cardiology
New York University School of Medicine
Glenn I. Fishman, MD., F.A.C.C., F.A.H.A.
The William Goldring Professor of Medicine
Director, Leon H. Charney Division of Cardiology
New York University School of Medicine
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