Interventional Cardiology Fellowship Program

The educational program revolves around the Six Core Competencies:

• Patient Care
• Medical Knowledge
• Practice Based Learning
• Interpersonal Communication Skills
• Professionalism
• System Based Practice.

The specialty educational program in Interventional Cardiology is organized to provide training and experience at a sufficient level for the Fellow to acquire the medical knowledge and competency of a specialist in interventional cardiology. During training in interventional cardiology, the Fellow’s clinical experience will include opportunities to:

• Diagnose, Select Therapies and Perform interventional procedures
• Manage and judge the effectiveness of treatment(s) for inpatients and outpatients
• Gain exposure to a broad range of cardiovascular disease including:
• Chronic coronary artery disease
• Acute coronary syndromes
• Valvular heart disease
• Congestive heart failure and cardiogenic shock
• Pericardial disease
• Adult congenital heart disease,
• Peripheral vascular disease
• Cardiac arrhythmias.

Practice-Based learning and improvement is an essential part of the program as fellows continually monitor and augment their clinical and procedural skills based on observations by themselves, clinical faculty, ancillary staff, and patients. Fellows are given opportunities to assume continuing responsibility for both acutely and chronically ill patients to learn the natural history of the cardiac conditions, and through assimilation of scientific knowledge.

The AdventHealth Interventional Cardiology Training Program provides experience in the evaluation and management of a wide variety of adult patients with acute and chronic cardiovascular diseases. The one-year program is directed towards and fulfills all the Program Requirements for Fellowship Education in Interventional Cardiology set forth by the American Council on Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). The training program is fully accredited by ACGME.

The program is approved to train 2 fellows per year (currently taking one fellow). During the year, the fellows will be trained to become fully competent practitioners in the discipline of interventional cardiology. The fellows will also gain some exposure to peripheral vascular angiography and intervention, as well as gain significant expertise in intervention for structural heart disease
***a second year of dedicated training will be required to obtain credentials for interventional treatment of peripheral vascular disease (not offered at AdventHealth Hospital). **** although not required, a second dedicated structural intervention program year (not offered at AdventHealth Hospital) may also help the graduating interventional fellow to gain further exposure to structural heart disease interventions.

AdventHealth Hospital in Orlando is a 1300-bed tertiary care hospital providing the full range of cardiovascular services. There are six cardiac catheterization laboratories. An average of 6000 procedures are performed annually, of which more than 1200 are percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) procedures.

Furthermore, AdventHealth Orlando performs an average of 500 valvular interventional procedures per year and an ever-growing number of structural heart interventions including left atrial appendage closure, balloon valvuloplasty, and adult congenital heart interventions.

All inpatient catheterization-based cardiovascular care at the AdventHealth Orlando campus.

The training program is directed by Dr. Rodrigo Lago, MD. Nipun Arora, MD serves as the Associate Program Director. Mr. Randal Torres is the Program Coordinator.

• The IC fellow will be assigned to work in the cardiac catheterization laboratory daily.
• The IC fellow will be responsible to perform both diagnostic and interventional procedures. (procedures encountered during this rotation are among the most medically and technically complex)
• First call to assist with interventional procedures as they arise in any of the procedure rooms occupied by the faculty.
• The IC fellow will also perform myocardial biopsy procedures on the cardiac transplantation patients when assigned to a heart failure laboratory.