Your Cardiology Fellowship: Skills to Develop

Written By: Sharon Cretsinger

So you are in the application process for a cardiology fellowship.  This process can be quite involved and time consuming.  It is really worth your time to investigate each prospective cardiovascular disease fellowship carefully to make sure that it will provide you with the full range of skills you will need upon completion.

Cardiovascular Fellowship: Major Areas of Focus

• Preventing Additional Cardiovascular Damage:  Many diseases of the heart are chronic and long term.  They often cannot be cured, but can be managed.  The cardiologist must be skilled in helping patients practice preventative medicine and perhaps make lifestyle adjustments to mitigate the continued deterioration of their cardiac conditions.
• Diagnosis:  The cardiologist must be skilled at performing an echocardiogram (ECG) and interpreting the results.
• Heart Rhythm Disorders:  Electrophysiology is actually a sub-specialty within the field of cardiology.  Theses specialists focus on the treatment of heart rhythm disorders and know how to insert pacemakers and utilize electronic defibrillation, among other specialized skills.  If you are interested in this sub-specialty, you will, of course, want to make sure to apply to a Georgetown cardiology fellowship and other fellowships that offer this training.
• Administration:  Like many doctors, cardiologists may spend some time each week updating patient records and submitting insurance forms.  Your fellowship should provide you with some skills in this area as well.

Cardiology Fellowship: Role of the Cardiologist

Once you have completed your fellowship and have become a fully licensed cardiologist, how will you spend your time?

1. Examining patients will take a lot of your time.  You will often receive referrals from primary care or other kinds of doctors to take care of patients who have had heart attacks or other cardiac events.
2. You will order and interpret tests in order to decide on the best course of treatment for your patients.  Some of these include echocardiograms, stress tests and blood tests.
3. Some of your time will be spent treating patients.  This can include prescribing medication or counseling with regard to lifestyle changes.  If you have chosen a specialty in electrophysiology, you will also spend some of your time implanting pacemakers and performing other related treatments.