CardioExchange Archive

Welcome to the fellows’ group on CardioExchange! Andy Kates is the fellowship director at Washington University, and I am the director at UT Southwestern; together, we are moderating this section of the website. We are excited about working with you! I also confess to some apprehension, as I tend to be a slow adopter of new technology (I still don’t have a text pager, an iPhone, or a crackberry).

We hope to create a forum for addressing the educational and professional needs unique to cardiology fellows. We’ll review important new articles and topics as well as the “classic” research that underpins evidence-based medicine. We’ll discuss complex cases and see how management approaches may differ among programs. All of us can take this opportunity to explore the nuts and bolts of fellowship training and learn from each other what works best and how each of us can improve his or her program. We can also use this forum to talk about your futures as cardiologists, including such issues as:

1. What will the job market look like when you finally finish training?
2. How do academic and private-practice lifestyles and jobs differ in the various cardiology subspecialties?
3. How should you structure your training in clinical cardiology and in research to prepare yourselves for an uncertain future?
4. How should you identify a mentor, and how can you tell if your mentor is looking out for your best interests?

Andy and I will post content here that we think is interesting or important and update it on a regular basis, but we also welcome suggestions from you about what is most relevant to your needs. This is uncharted territory, and we need your feedback to learn how best to maximize the potential of CardioExchange.

The discussion area is a more dynamic feature of the site, and one I think many of us will find particularly engaging. Andy and I will occasionally post blogs (and I had fully expected to go my whole life without blogging!), but your postings and questions will largely drive the discussion threads. We encourage you to be active participants, asking and answering questions and steering the discussions toward the areas you find most interesting, important, or just plain fun.

Where do you want to go? We’re looking forward to an intriguing experiment in fellows’ education!