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Advanced Pediatric Cardiac Imaging  Curriculum

Goals

  1. Prepare congenital cardiologists for an academic career specializing in the performance and interpretation of multimodality imaging for acquired pediatric and congenital heart disease in patients of all ages.
  2. Establish competence and independence for the trainee to work unsupervised as a new faculty member
  3. Provide didactic and clinical opportunities for the trainee to teach and supervise sonographers and more junior trainees
  4. Provide opportunities for active participation in research and quality improvement involving multimodality congenital cardiac imaging

Our program accepts one advanced cardiac imaging fellow per year. This structured training program is ideal for the applicant interested in a career in congenital/pediatric cardiac imaging, including research/quality improvement, and teaching. Exposure to all modalities (TTE, TEE, fetal echo, cardiac CT, cardiac MRI) is provided. Clinical time is divided among the various modalities with felxibility depending on individual interest and career aspirations. Fellows will participate in didactic and clinical conferences. Fellows will take some call and be expected to teach and provide back-up to junior cardiology fellows. Fellows will participate in research with the goal of an abstract submission by the end-of-year with expectation of a completed manuscript thereafter. 

Time: 85% clinical, 15% research

Clinical time is divided among modalities with flexibility depending on individual interest.

Imaging fellows participate in didactic and clinical conferences.

General Expectations

(depending on individual interest and career aspirations, fetal or cross-sectional imaging can be weighted more heavily)

  • Daily participation at assigned task/location
  • Maintain a log of the number and types of studies along with your role in the study
  • Monthly meetings with program leadership to review the log, identify challenges and brainstorm solutions
  • Monthly meetings with research mentor to review progress and set goals for the next month

Other:

  • General cardiology clinics: 1 day/month
  • Tuesday echo didactic conference: help lead discussion/presentation, topics TBD
  • Surgical conference teaching: Preparation of imaging (echo and cross sectional) for upcoming surgical and discussion cases with the categorical fellows in advance of Wednesday morning conference; monthly (November-June)
  • Participation in case presentations and teaching at bimonthly fetal care conferences
  • Presentation of fetal cases at quarterly QA meetings

Call Expectations

  • Your call is meant to ensure some exposure to on-call TEE OR cases (i.e., overnight/weekend) as well as to provide you with experience mentoring the 1st year fellows as their back up when they began night float in the spring (January-June).
  • Leadership will work with each applicant to customize a ‘back-up’ call schedule to specify call (~1 week a month, 1 weekend a month)
  • Given the unpredictability of clinical medicine, it is inevitable that a rare or unique learning opportunity will present when you’re not on call. Your involvement as the imaging fellow is encouraged, pending availability.
  • Leadership will work with each applicant to the best means of alert for unique or interesting cases.

Research

0.5 day/week; largely self-driven, with access to senior mentors and data/statistical resources.

  • Fellow will select a research mentor within the first 2 months. Mentor and fellow will identify a suitable project for completion within the year.
  • Goal: an abstract submission by end-of-year with expectation of completed manuscript.
     
  • Numerical benchmarks are less important than competency-based benchmarks
  • Plan to review at monthly meeting with program leadership

Contact Us

Pediatric Advanced Cardiac Imaging Fellowship
81 N Mario Capecchi Drive
Salt Lake City, UT 84113

Program Director
John Colquitt, MD
john.colquitt@hsc.utah.edu

Program Coordinator

Laurel Fortun
ped.education@hsc.utah.edu
Phone: 801-662-5700