Program

Program

The Advanced Cardiovascular Imaging Fellowship at the Allina Health Minneapolis Heart Institute is a 12 month program designed to train cardiovascular specialists in Advanced Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), and Cardiovascular Computed Tomography (CCT). At the end of the Advanced Cardiac Imaging Fellowship, trainees will achieve Level III training requirements according to ACC 2015 ACC 2015 Core Cardiovascular Training Statement and become expert in these 2 areas of cardiac imaging.

The program is designed as an advanced fellowship position for trainees who have completed a formal three year general cardiology fellowship. In addition to gaining the relevant knowledge of physics and instrumentation for each modality, fellows will learn to independently acquire, post-process, and interpret CMR and CCT studies.

Fellows have hands-on supervised clinical training, one-on-one teaching sessions with imaging attendings and participate in research and educational activities. The high volume of clinical studies and research opportunities provide fellows an excellent teaching environment. We typically average between 8-10 CMR studies, 25-30 cardiac CTAs (50% coronary CTA, 30% structural, 20% other), and another 15-20 coronary calcium scores at a given day.

In addition to the standard CMR studies for evaluating cardiac morphology and function, advanced techniques including pharmacologic stress imaging, adult congenital heart disease and arrhythmia substrate imaging are routinely performed. Allina Health Minneapolis Heart Institute has a strong collaboration with NIH-NHLBI through is also one of the few academic centers that offers state-of-the-art CMR sequences for quantitative myocardial blood flow, and advanced pulse sequences which allow for complete free-breathing CMR exam with real-time cine imaging for patients with arrhythmia and delayed enhancement in those with pacemakers/defibrillators.

Cardiac CT studies include evaluation of coronary artery disease (with ad-hoc FFR-CT is available for the functional assessment of coronary artery stenosis), pulmonary venous anatomy, cardiac morphology and function for many complex valvular cases, large number of TAVR, TMVR and tricuspid interventions planning.

  • The program consists of 4 full time cardiologists who are level 3 trained in CMR and 7 full-time cardiologists level 3 trained in CCT, a full complement of support staff, and state of the art imaging facility with dedicated cardiac MRI (1.5T Siemens Aera) and 3 dedicated dual-source CT scanners (Siemens Force, Siemens Drive, and Siemens Flash) with several software for multimodality post-processing capabilities.
  • The fellowship is a paid fellowship for a 1-year term starting on July 1st , 2024. Includes working 14 weekends per year, no nights and a half a day per week in clinic.
  • Must be board eligible in Cardiology and must have current, unrestricted Minnesota State Medical Licensure.
  • Applicants must possess a valid ECFMG certificate (if you graduated from a medical school outside of the U.S. or Canada)

We offer a competitive compensation package, including:

  • Medical, dental, life and vision insurance; short and long-term disability
  • CME allowance
  • Relocation assistance may be available
  • 15 PTO days, 5 CME days and 6 research days