Preventive Cardiology Clinical Components

Fellows spend 3 days per week in the Preventive Cardiology Clinic.

The educational approach is experiential with supervision. In all experiences the fellow is required to be the first to meet the patient to formulate an appropriate plan and to discuss this with Drs. Thompson, Fernandez and Saucier.

The fellows spend their year in the Preventive Cholesterol Management/Preventive Cardiology Clinic, the LDL Apheresis program, the Cardiac Rehabilitation Program, the Athlete’s Heart Program and Preventive Cardiology Research. The teaching approach is patient-based experience with faculty review and discussion, plus targeted research projects with review of the literature.

Nuclear Cardiology Clinical and Research Components

The nuclear cardiology fellow will participate in all activities of the nuclear cardiology laboratory. This includes evaluation of patients referred for procedures such as chest pain evaluation, myocardial viability evaluation, cardiac sarcoid evaluation, status of therapies in patients with known coronary artery disease. The fellow will interview the patient and work with the attending physician to perform appropriate stress procedures. These include vasodilator stress, dobutamine stress, exercise stress, and combined pharmacologic exercise procedures. The fellow will also participate in the interpretation and determination of clinical significance of the nuclear cardiology procedures in a formalized didactic session with the attending physician and cardiovascular fellows. The preventive cardiology fellow will also participate in the determination of clinical significance of the study results.

Research Components

The preventive cardiology clinic and nuclear cardiology laboratory are actively involved in clinical research. The fellow will participate in several of these projects which include recruitment of patients, collection and interpretation of data. The fellow will actively participate in abstract and manuscript preparation. From these projects, it is also anticipated that the nuclear cardiology fellow will identify projects of his/her own which would include development of the protocol, initiation of the study, and completion of data entry and data analysis for abstract/manuscript preparation. It is anticipated that at least 2 full manuscripts will be written and submitted during the years’ experience.

Didactic Components

Daily sessions are held with the general cardiology fellowship in various subspecialties including: non-invasive cardiology, cardiac catheterization, prevention cardiology, arrhythmia services, journal club, and cardiology grand rounds.