Handsome88 Posted March 25, 2014 Report Share Posted March 25, 2014 How is the job market for interventional cards now a days? Would one be able to find jobs in smaller cities or is that limited to big urban centers? If so, how limited are you to the type of interventional procedures that you could do in smaller centres? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
medicine man Posted March 26, 2014 Report Share Posted March 26, 2014 How is the job market for interventional cards now a days?Would one be able to find jobs in smaller cities or is that limited to big urban centers? If so, how limited are you to the type of interventional procedures that you could do in smaller centres? Not good. Most fellows say it sucks, extra fellowships + Masters etc...General Cardiology is still decent. Who knows though in the future with people retiring and such. Most small centres would send a patient in need Interventional to a bigger centre, so no. The smaller cities in USA may be a better option. All the big cities in the US are likely saturated as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ploughboy Posted March 26, 2014 Report Share Posted March 26, 2014 How is the job market for interventional cards now a days?Would one be able to find jobs in smaller cities or is that limited to big urban centers? If so, how limited are you to the type of interventional procedures that you could do in smaller centres? I'm not a cardiologist, but I think the market is pretty poor for interventional cards in general, even in the smaller centres. Keep in mind that a "smaller centre" in this case is still a city of at least 150,000-200,000 people (number off the top of my head, based on places where I know they have a cath lab). That's maybe 30 cities in all of Canada. Your bread and butter, even in the big academic centres, is going to be angios and stents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justletmein Posted March 26, 2014 Report Share Posted March 26, 2014 why did you post this in the primary care section? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NLengr Posted March 26, 2014 Report Share Posted March 26, 2014 why did you post this in the primary care section? This is where it belongs. IM -> Cardiology -> Interventional Cardiology That's the training path. It's not a surgical specialty or a diagnostics specialty. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LuuLuu421 Posted March 29, 2014 Report Share Posted March 29, 2014 Job market for interventional is still not good and probably won't be for a while. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Handsome88 Posted April 2, 2014 Author Report Share Posted April 2, 2014 It's upsetting to hear that you may not find jobs after 7-8 years of training after med school. Is it possible to work as a general cardiologist for a few years and then do 1-2 years of interventional training later on once the market has improved? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NLengr Posted April 3, 2014 Report Share Posted April 3, 2014 It's upsetting to hear that you may not find jobs after 7-8 years of training after med school. Is it possible to work as a general cardiologist for a few years and then do 1-2 years of interventional training later on once the market has improved? Technically possible but it would be hard to leave a practice to go back to training. Poor employment is the reality of specialist medicine in Canada now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blondie888 Posted April 3, 2014 Report Share Posted April 3, 2014 It is not uncommon for interventional cardiologists to practice exclusively as general cardiologists as a result of the job market. Unfortunately, many (I would assume most) lose their competency in interventional procedures in these cases. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Handsome88 Posted April 3, 2014 Author Report Share Posted April 3, 2014 It is not uncommon for interventional cardiologists to practice exclusively as general cardiologists as a result of the job market. Unfortunately, many (I would assume most) lose their competency in interventional procedures in these cases. I don't think they would lose that skill, it's like learning to ride a bicycle, if they're rusty a couple of procedure and they'd be good to go again. And is it really that expensive to open a cath lab? For what cardiologists get paid they can probably open their own group practice cath labs...refubrished equipment is probably worth 500k. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A-Stark Posted April 3, 2014 Report Share Posted April 3, 2014 I don't think they would lose that skill, it's like learning to ride a bicycle, if they're rusty a couple of procedure and they'd be good to go again. And is it really that expensive to open a cath lab? For what cardiologists get paid they can probably open their own group practice cath labs...refubrished equipment is probably worth 500k. Have you ever been in a cath lab? A free-standing private cath lab is a pretty ludicrous idea. Are you aware of the kinds of complications that occur? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Handsome88 Posted April 3, 2014 Author Report Share Posted April 3, 2014 Have you ever been in a cath lab? A free-standing private cath lab is a pretty ludicrous idea. Are you aware of the kinds of complications that occur? http://www.ccacardio.com/faq.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ploughboy Posted April 3, 2014 Report Share Posted April 3, 2014 I don't think they would lose that skill, it's like learning to ride a bicycle, if they're rusty a couple of procedure and they'd be good to go again. And is it really that expensive to open a cath lab? For what cardiologists get paid they can probably open their own group practice cath labs...refubrished equipment is probably worth 500k. "Our equipment is used and our physicians are rusty" probably isn't a great marketing slogan. There would be a huge fixed cost to opening a free-standing cath lab, even with rusty equipment and used physicians. Equipment and ancillary staff don't come cheap, and I can't imagine what it would cost to insure such an enterprise. Outpatient caths are pretty straight-forward...until they aren't. Every outpatient cath program I know of is done in a hospital, where they have the backup of a CCU and CVSx for those times that you dissect a coronary, or perforate the aorta, or induce an arrhythmia, or have an anaphalactic reaction to the contrast dye, or suffer an acute stroke from a piece of junk that embolizes off the aorta, or go into tamponade, etc, etc... Even the less serious complications, like the guy who just won't stop bleeding from his access site, will need time, attention and interventions that are going to cut into your bottom line. Really don't think it would be logistically or economically feasible (addendum) at least not in Canada. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A-Stark Posted April 3, 2014 Report Share Posted April 3, 2014 http://www.ccacardio.com/faq.html Did you look at the part where all they do is diagnostic caths? That's not going to help interventionalists keep up their skills. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmorelan Posted April 4, 2014 Report Share Posted April 4, 2014 I don't think they would lose that skill, it's like learning to ride a bicycle, if they're rusty a couple of procedure and they'd be good to go again. And is it really that expensive to open a cath lab? For what cardiologists get paid they can probably open their own group practice cath labs...refubrished equipment is probably worth 500k. Oh they lose it - skills degrade, and degrade pretty quickly on the cutting edge. By the way it isn't just the lab, and equipment - which is of course very expensive. The very stents themselves are incredibly pricey, along with all the staff etc. It isn't capital that kills you here (ie pooling resources won't help). Bottom line is the docs salary much less than the operating cost of the procedure. It isn't a business model that would work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmorelan Posted April 4, 2014 Report Share Posted April 4, 2014 Did you look at the part where all they do is diagnostic caths? That's not going to help interventionalists keep up their skills. ha - yeah. "ok so we found a problem but we are completely unqualified or equipped to actually fix it. Now you have to go to the real hospital and have the entire thing done all over again". Twice the risk, twice the cost..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastriss Posted April 4, 2014 Report Share Posted April 4, 2014 http://www.ccacardio.com/faq.html Go to the contact section on that site and realize it's in the USA. I definitely don't want my mom or dad of anyone I know for that matter getting stents put in outside of a hospital. Diagnostic caths are a finnicky thing. What do you do if you find a 70% lesion? Not stent it and refer it to an interventionalist only to have them redo the cath for stenting? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bloh Posted April 4, 2014 Report Share Posted April 4, 2014 Funny you say that because that's exactly what they suggest " PCI is commonly performed immediately after a diagnostic cath in a hospital cath lab where cardiac surgery is available if needed for back-up (“ad-hoc”). In a freestanding outpatient cath lab (the lab not on the campus of a hospital with a cardiac surgery program), PCI is usually scheduled for another day at an inpatient lab (“staged” PCI) Pay for your staged PCI - twice the cost, twice the risk!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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