Interventional Cardiology Fellowship

Applications for fellowship in interventional cardiology are accepted via the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS). A thorough review is undertaken of each fellow application.

Select applicants are invited for an interview to meet with staff and to tour the facilities. After the interview process, applications are thoroughly reviewed again.

Prospective fellows are encouraged to apply provided they have completed the necessary training to become ABIM board-eligible in internal medicine.

Upon completion of the Interventional Cardiology Fellowship, each of our fellows will have acquired the knowledge, skills and practical experience that are required to become an interventional cardiologist.

Throughout their time in our program, fellows are given increasing responsibility for patient care and procedures. The program provides supervised procedural experience to the fellows so that they can gain the expertise required of an interventional cardiologist. The fellow will also:

• Understand the indications and contraindications of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), including optimal patient management of the patient before and after PCI.
• Understand the principles of radiological imaging of the heart and lungs, including radiation safety.
• Acquire sufficient skill to perform PCI in major coronary arteries and their branches.
• Develop skills in interpreting images and hemodynamic tracings obtained during PCI and participate in the multidisciplinary decision-making process based on those images and patient assessment.
• Recognize and manage PCI's common and uncommon complications and understand the principles of peer review of adverse outcomes.
• Understand the utility of the various interventional devices, including but not limited to balloons, stents, atherectomy devices, intracoronary brachytherapy, distal protection devices, intravascular ultrasound, percutaneous thrombectomy, laser, etc.
• Understand the appropriate application of interventional techniques to valvular heart disease, especially percutaneous valvuloplasty for mitral and aortic stenosis.
• Understand the appropriate application of interventional techniques to congenital heart disease, especially percutaneous closure of patent foramen ovale and atrial septal defect closure.
• Understand the appropriate application of interventional techniques for the therapy of obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (i.e., when to perform percutaneous transeptal myocardial ablation).
• Develop an understanding and methodology for evaluating and treating peripheral vascular disease patients.
• Understand and gain expertise in endomyocardial biopsy, invasive management of decompensated heart failure, vasodilator and inotrope hemodynamic studies, IVUS interrogation for transplant arteriopathy, high-risk PCI in advanced ischemic cardiomyopathy patients, use of percutaneous ventricular assist devices either for left or right ventricular support and in combination with surgical LVADs.

Participation in cardiovascular research is an important part of the fellowship program at Tufts MC. Fellows are encouraged to become involved in research early in their fellowship and are given numerous opportunities in cardiovascular research, including basic science, clinical projects and population/epidemiology research.

The Interventional Cardiology Fellowship program offers several unique research opportunities. Our fellows have access to a highly enriched scientific environment for clinical and translational studies. All fellows in the Interventional Cardiology program actively participate in clinical research studies and are strongly encouraged and mentored in the process of submitting abstracts and manuscripts. Drs. Kimmelstiel, Weintraub and Kapur mentor fellows in participation in large, randomized clinical trials. Our laboratory has a long history of participation in multicenter device trials, having participated in virtually all the major drug-eluting stenting trials.

Our multicenter clinical trial work extends beyond coronary trials to the realm of peripheral and structural heart disease, where we are one of the leading centers nationally in enrollment in the RESPECT trial. The trial investigates the effect of PFO device closure in secondary stroke prevention. Interventional fellows will actively participate in these important clinical trials.

Our program also actively pursues investigator-initiated, single-center studies. Examples of such investigations include the effect of pharmacologic adjuncts to PCI on platelet function, the effect of nesiritide on renal function in patients with severe renal insufficiency undergoing contrast angiographic procedure, and many other ongoing and planned projects which are fertile ground for collaboration with interventional cardiology fellows.

Our Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Center provides a high number of physiologic studies for HCM and alcohol septal ablation. Several research studies involving alcohol septal ablation are currently underway and involve interventional fellows directly by allowing them to collaborate with colleagues in the heart failure arena.

As an Investigator at the Molecular Cardiology Research Institute at Tufts MC, Dr. Kapur’s basic science laboratory provides a unique opportunity for translational and molecular research within the catheterization laboratory.

Our outstanding faculty members are among the nation’s leaders in bringing the latest advances in heart failure into clinical practice. All are on the academic staff of Tufts University School of Medicine.

• Laurence C. Conway, MD
• Jean-Pierre Geagea, MD
• Navin K. Kapur, MD
• Carey D. Kimmelstiel, MD
• Anthony Marks, MD
• Syed Tahir, MD
• Andrew R. Weintraub, MD