Advanced Heart Failure Fellowship Curriculum
During this one-year fellowship fellows will become adept with the management of patients with acute and chronic congestive heart failure, evaluation for advanced therapies, such as mechanical support (short and long term), and pre- and post-cardiac transplant care. Fellows will participate in endomyocardial biopsies, placement of Swan-Ganz catheters and other procedures. The primary training hospital will be Advocate Christ Medical Center.
Learning Objectives Heading link
- Become proficient in the diagnosis and management of patients with advanced heart failure and patients who have undergone cardiac transplantation or ventricular assist device
- Learn the nuances of outpatient and inpatient care of these patients in terms of medications and their side effects.
- Learn when and how to work up a patient for cardiac transplantation, short vs. long term mechanical circulatory support.
- Learn about post-transplant immunosuppression and management of these medications and their side effects, and comorbidities associated with cardiac transplant.
- Learn when and how to enroll patients in CHF clinical trials and the benefits of clinical trial research
- Develop skill in device-based therapies for CHF.
Fellow Duties Heading link
- Participate in the inpatient care of patients on the CHF/Cardiac Transplant service.
- Participate in the outpatient CHF and cardiac transplant clinics.
- Evaluate patients referred for cardiac transplantation and determine candidacy.
- Participate in CHF satellite clinics.
- Determine candidacy for cardiac resynchronization and defibrillator therapies including interpreting device interrogation.
- Participate in procedures, including endomyocardial biopsies, Swan-Ganz catheter placement and device-based therapies for CHF.
- Participate in/coordinate perioperative care of cardiac transplant patients including pre-operative orders, line placement, etc.
- Participate in post-operative and outpatient management of patients with mechanical circulatory support.
- Evaluate inpatient referrals for cardiac transplantation and mechanical circulatory support.
- Take call for the heart failure service.
- Participate in research protocols in CHF/transplant.
- Work closely with the nurse coordinators and the Physician’s assistant.
- Attend and participate in Cardiac Transplant/Ventricular Assist Device Patient Selection Conference.
- Attend all mandatory fellowship conferences as outlined in the cardiology fellowship curriculum.
- Participate in clinical trial enrollment and evaluation to become adept at clinical trial design, determining appropriate outcomes to assess, and interpretation of statistics to obtain results.