Fellowship Program Overview

The training mission of the Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School (RWJMS) Cardiovascular Disease Fellowship Program is to prepare clinical and academic cardiologists. Our goal is to prepare fellows to take on leadership roles in cardiovascular medicine, basic and clinical research and clinical cardiology. The fellows are an integral part of the division and encouraged to always be strong advocates for all patients under their care. The faculty is committed to making a valuable contribution to the next generation of clinical and academic cardiologists, molding innovators who are committed to lifetime of learning. All fellows must be intimately involved in a research project during the course of their fellowship and are strongly encouraged to develop a research plan with their research mentor early in the course of their fellowship. Opportunities exist in a variety of research disciplines. 

The duration of the cardiovascular disease fellowship program is three years with twelve accredited positions in the general program emphasizing preparation in academic cardiology. Throughout the duration of their training, with close mentorship from the faculty, the fellows serve as consultants for critically ill medical and surgical patients, provide care to their own patients in an outpatient setting. The fellows are trained to perform and interpret the vast array of invasive and non-invasive diagnostic and therapeutic cardiovascular procedures. Comprehensive training in all major aspects of clinical cardiology is combined with training in basic and clinical cardiovascular research.  

 Our fellowship program provides an academically and clinically rigorous training experience in general cardiology, as well as advanced training in clinical cardiology subspecialties. The aims of the program are to provide the trainee with the basic and clinical knowledge, procedural skills, clinical judgment, professionalism and interpersonal skills, and abilities necessary to continue to hone these skills through the course of a long career. Fellowship training will prepare fellows to function not only as outstanding cardiologists, but also as subspecialists.  

Two hospitals participate in this program:  Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital (RWJUH), Jersey and the VA New Jersey Health Care System in East Orange, NJ (VANJHCS). The training program offers advanced training in clinical subspecialties of cardiology (nuclear cardiology, echocardiography, cardiac catheterization/interventional cardiology, electrophysiology, and heart failure), as well as academic research training.  

The core clinical training for the program is based on the ACC Revised Recommendations for Training in Adult Cardiovascular Medicine Core Cardiology Training III (COCATS 3) published in 1995 and updated in 2011. Training is conducted in compliance with the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) program requirements for general fellowship education in the subspecialties of internal medicine and the specific requirements for fellowship education in cardiovascular disease. 

The curriculum of the cardiovascular disease fellowship consists of a variety of clinical experiences and didactic conferences that take place at RWJUH and VANJHCS (see a typical conference schedule below). This has increased the breath of experiences for the fellows by exposing them to a diverse patient population and the best clinical experience at the various sites.  

Fellows participate in didactic sessions, some designed for them as core curriculum. There are conferences designed specifically for board review. Other conferences are division wide and are designed for clinical care review or as a forum for invited external experts.  

A final aspect of the curriculum involves fellow involvement in teaching. This occurs in several settings, including direct clinical teaching of internal medicine residents on the inpatient cardiology services, as well as assisting in the early training of new cardiology fellows. Fellows are expected to give didactic lectures at the various subspecialty conferences and the cardiology clinical conference lecture series. 

To learn more about the Cardiology Fellowship Program, please click here.