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The Division of Cardiovascular Disease offers an unaccredited year of heart failure training to physicians who are interested in developing expertise in treating adult patients advanced heart failure, in both the inpatient and outpatient settings. Applicants must have completed an internal medicine residency.
At Einstein Healthcare Network we have a busy and vibrant inpatient Heart Failure service. We see a wide variety of cardiomyopathy patients, including those with valvular heart disease, peripartum cardiomyopathy, drug-induced cardiomyopathy, coronary artery disease, pericardial disorders and connective tissue disorders. Heart Failure fellows will spend approximately six months on the inpatient heart failure service (divided into one-month rotations), and will learn to diagnose and manage patients on all parts of the clinical spectrum: from well-perfused patients with mild volume overload to hemodynamically unstable patients requiring mechanical circulatory support. At any given time, approximately 10-14 patients will be attended to by this service.
Fellows will follow inpatients under the supervision of the Heart Failure attending. Daily rounds will include review of the patient's history, physical examination, and results of both non-invasive and invasive diagnostic studies. Raw data from these diagnostic studies are frequently reviewed. These include electrocardiograms, chest x-rays, hemodynamic data, angiograms, echocardiograms, stress echocardiograms, exercise nuclear studies, Cardiac CT and MRI scans and exercise studies with measurement of maximal oxygen consumption.
The remaining six months is dedicated to conducting clinical research with one of the many cardiologists actively engaged in research. During this time, the fellow will be expected to spend two to three afternoons a week in the outpatient clinic learning the principles of ambulatory heart failure management.
Einstein Healthcare Network has an active VAD (ventricular assist device) program where fellows will learn proper patient selection, transplant/VAD evaluation, and peri and post-procedure management of VAD patients throughout their inpatient and outpatient rotations.