Letter from Dr. John Ryan, Program Director

 Dear Cardiovascular Disease Fellowship Applicant,

Thank you for your interest in our cardiovascular disease fellowship program. We accept fellows with diverse training backgrounds and diverse interests.  Whether you have a clear focus on sub-specialty training, or are undifferentiated, our tailored curriculum and broad exposure to cardiovascular disease will help you achieve your desired career goals.  Our job as faculty is to ensure that you are successful in your career.  We cannot define what type of cardiologist you will be: academician or private practitioner; electrophysiologist or advanced imager; researcher or clinician.  However, we will help you become what you want.      

Training in the cardiology fellowship program at the University of Utah is intense and thorough. There is an emphasis on hands-on involvement for the fellows, with appropriate faculty supervision and instruction.

Both clinical and basic research-training opportunities are available. All fellows are required to have some scholarly experience during training. Some fellows do an additional 1-2 years of research training as part of our T32 program. This level of dedicated research time is not for everyone. We are highly selective of fellows who apply to the T32 program. Due to our selectivity, 100% of fellows who have wanted this level of research experience have been accepted to our T32 program. 

Approximately 60% of cardiovascular disease fellowship graduates pursue sub-specialty training.  We have our own ACGME accredited programs in electrophysiology, interventional cardiology, advanced heart failure/transplant, and adult congenital heart disease.  If you have a firm idea of an area of specialization, please indicate this clearly in your application and be sure to discuss this explicitly when you interview. If you do not yet have a firm idea of an area of specialization within cardiology, which most applicants will not, this is perfectly acceptable.

All applications completed through ERAS (Electronic Residency Application Service), are carefully reviewed. Please include in your personal statement your motivation for pursuing a career in cardiology as well as your career goals. In this statement note any specific research or clinical specialization interests which you may have at this time. As already mentioned, don't be deterred from saying that you are "undifferentiated" within the field of cardiology if that is the case.

An interview of competitive applicants by our faculty will be required, except under unusual circumstances. Interviews are conducted in September and October. We are highly selective in those we invite for interviews, and I apologize in advance if you are not invited for an interview. We currently match 6 applicants per year. In exceptional circumstances, we will consider accepting fellows outside the match.

We welcome applications from non-US citizens as well as US citizens. Non-US citizens must have a J-1 visa or be a permanent resident of the US.

If there are questions you would like to ask before making a decision to apply to our program, please feel free to contact our program coordinator, Missy Grow at missy.grow @hsc.utah.edu.

Sincerely yours,

John Ryan, MD
Associate Professor of Medicine
Program Director, Cardiovascular Disease Fellowship
University of Utah