Interventional Cardiology Fellowship

Program Overview

The Interventional Cardiology Fellowship at Houston Methodist Hospital is a one-year Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME)-approved program (ACGME ID: 1524814171) organized under the directorship of Neal S. Kleiman, MD. The fellowship functions as an integral component of the subspecialty fellowship in cardiology. During the year of interventional training, fellows are expected to master the techniques involved in coronary intervention, while developing perspective on procedural risk and benefit, patient selection and clinical decision-making in cardiovascular patient care. At the end of the year, fellows should function as independent operators during interventional procedures. The program adheres to the tenets outlined in the ACGME training requirements, American College of Cardiology (ACC) Core Cardiology Training Symposium (COCATS) guidelines document and the American Heart Association (AHA) statement on clinical competency in interventional cardiology.

Objectives of the Fellowship

The primary goal of the Interventional Cardiology Fellowship is to train future leaders in the field of interventional cardiology. The fellowship program provides the opportunity to acquire procedural expertise:

• Percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty
• Balloon angioplasty
• Stent deployment
• Rotational atherectomy
• Directional atherectomy
• Laser atherectomy
• Mechanical thrombectomy
• Rheolytic thrombectomy
• Distal protection devices

Fellows will learn techniques for percutaneous coronary intervention and other procedures:

• Percutaneous balloon valvuloplasty
• Percutaneous valve implantation/replacement
• Transcatheter closure of intracardiac communications
• Alcohol septal ablation for hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy
• Catheter treatment of congenital heart disease

Clinical investigations include the use of novel devices for percutaneous treatment of coronary artery disease, non-coronary cardiac interventions, such as percutaneous valve replacement, drug-eluting stent studies, stem cell and angiogenesis factor treatment for patients with end-state coronary, and peripheral arterial disease and novel imaging technologies.

Fellows graduating from the one-year program will easily exceed the minimum ACGME requirement of 250 coronary interventions. Our curriculum meets the requirements specified by the American College of Cardiology (ACC) for interventionalists; and our high volume and high level of case complexity provide an excellent foundation to develop expertise as an independent operator.

State-of-the-Art Facilities

All training will take place in the Houston Methodist Hospital (915 beds). The Houston Methodist DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center cardiac catheterization laboratory facilities are located in Houston Methodist Hospital.

In August 2018, Houston Methodist opened a new 22-story building named Walter Tower, with nearly 1 million square feet, to include sophisticated cardiovascular surgical suites specially designed for highly technical and minimally invasive image-guided heart procedures. The building features 14 heart catheterization labs with expanded space and MRI and CT conveniently located next to post-op rooms, and a helipad that will give emergency personnel direct access to the OR, cath lab and intensive care units.

Our facilities also include a state-of-the-art research institute that houses theHouston Methodist Institute for Technology, Innovation & Education (MITIE), which is an educational resource for health care professionals and trainees who wish to improve their skills and acquire new ones through procedural simulation technology.