Pediatric Cardiology Fellowship

About the Fellowship Program

Established in 1954, the UCLA Pediatric Cardiology Fellowship program has had a long and distinguished history of clinical, research, and educational excellence. Tailored to the specific talents and interests of each trainee, this program excels in training individuals for successful careers in academic and clinical pediatric cardiology. Our comprehensive curriculum provides the flexibility and guidance to pursue careers within a broad spectrum of pediatric cardiology, and establishes a solid foundation in the current study and practice of this specialty.

Our program is proud to host a team of truly wonderful individuals who are genuinely passionate about their work. It is their compassion and dedication that makes it possible to meet the challenges faced in this specialty, and it is their good nature and camaraderie that make our program an enjoyable place to train. While we are primarily committed to educating our fellows, we are also committed to ensuring that they have a pleasant experience at UCLA.

The primary goal of UCLA's Pediatric Cardiology Fellowship Training Program is to prepare individuals for a career in academic pediatric cardiology. Individuals are chosen for the program that will pursue creative, scholarly endeavors to advance the science and practice of pediatric cardiology. It is a priority of our program to prepare its graduates for whatever career in pediatric cardiology they chose. Our graduates have all gone onto very successful careers in clinical and academic pediatric cardiology.

The objectives of this program are to:

Enable the trainee to become competent in all diagnostic and therapeutic areas of clinical pediatric cardiology so that he/she is capable of acting as a consultant.
Familiarize the trainee with methods of clinical and basic investigation and with the skills to undertake a research project

This program allows trainees interested in specialized areas of pediatric cardiology to become skilled in at least one of the following:

Advanced echocardiography (including fetal and transesophageal studies)
Interventional Catheterization
Electrophysiology (including ablation and standard and biventricular pacemakers)
Cardiac Critical Care (including ventricular assist devices, ECMO)
Exercise Physiology
Cardiomyopathy and Cardiac Transplantation Medicine (including ECMO)
Preventative cardiology (including hyperlipidemia, obesity)
Adult Congenital Cardiology
Public Policy and Outcomes Research

For trainees interested in a career in basic science investigation, opportunities include:

Developmental cardiovascular biology
Biology of vascular endothelium and smooth muscle
Myocardial energetics
Cardiovascular genetics
Biomedical Device Research

UCLA's Pediatric Cardiology fellowship program enables each fellow to design an individualized program and curriculum to meet his or her specific career needs. "The purpose of training during the three year fellowship is to provide a foundation for understanding normal and abnormal cardiovascular conditions, with a focus on the pathophysiology of cardiovascular disease, and to prepare them to provide optimal care and consultation for pediatric patients with cardiovascular disease."

The three year fellowship program offers a rotation schedule that allows the fellow to advance from beginner to advanced skills with the appropriate amount of supervision throughout. During the first two years, the trainee primarily develops clinical skills by maintaining close contact with the patients on the ward, intensive care units, in the operating room, and the clinic. The trainee acts as a consultant to the pediatric housestaff for all phases of the management of the patient, including emergency treatment, pre-operative and post-operative care. Research exposure and participation begins in the first year, but takes an important role during the second year. In the third year of training, the fellow has a major commitment to basic or clinical research. Finally, the educational program is rounded out with a structured didactic curriculum including a core curriculum in Clinical and Basic Science. Fellows participate in daily educational opportunities both receiving and giving didactic conferences.

There is a stress on tailoring the fellowship to the trainee's future career whether it is in basic science research, academic medicine or private practice. We offer an incredibly diverse fellowship curriculum that includes rotations in adult congenital heart disease, private practice pediatric cardiology and even an international rotation in third world pediatric cardiology! We encourage our fellows to do what they are passionate about and many of them become involved with Dr Kevin Shannon's camp for children with congenital heart disease (www.campdelcorazon.org) and Dr Juan Alejos's charity to treat children in Peru with congenital heart disease (www.heartswithhope.org).