In July 2003, Georgetown University Hospital and Washington Hospital Center merged their Cardiovascular Fellowship Programs. Both hospitals are under the MedStar unbrella and the merger takes advantage of the strengths at each institution. Georgetown has a long history of excellence in Cardiology, starting with the seminal work of Dr. Proctor Harvey. Many of the current leaders in Cardiology trained at Georgetown. The University also offers opportunities with the basic science community, cardiovascular pharmacologists and a superb animal facility. The Washington Hospital Center is a very large, busy inner-city hospital that has become a leader in Cardiology over the last 10 years. By combining the Georgetown fellowship with the Washington Hospital Center fellowship, trainees get "the best of both worlds". This website will describe the Washington Hospital Center experience. Please go to http://www.georgetown.edu/departments/ medicine/cardiology to get information about Georgetown University Hospital. Many aspects (schedules and conferences) are also in the process of being updated to reflect the new merged programs.

The Washington Hospital Center, a 907 bed not-for-profit hospital, is the largest cardiovascular referral center in the region. For example, a total of over 16,000 catheterization procedures, including 5,082 coronary PCIs and 897 peripheral PTAs were performed in 2002. Our cardiac surgery center performs approximately 2,500 open-heart procedures (including minimally invasive CABG, valve, off-pump surgery, transplant, and ventricular assist devices) annually.

From its opening, the Washington Hospital Center has been a teaching facility with residency programs in major specialties. These programs have been directed and taught by hospital-employed physicians. More than100 of these are now full-time at the institution. Fifteen of these physicians are cardiology faculty. Agreements with George Washington, Georgetown, Howard, and USHSMS lead to the presence of third year medical students on the wards as clinical clerks and fourth year students as electors on subspecialty rotations.

Washington Hospital Center has a dual role in patient care. It is both a large urban acute care hospital and a referral cardiovascular center for the Mid-Atlantic region. It therefore offers a rich diversity of patients. Its busy emergency room serves a predominately low and middle-income population of the city. Through this portal are admitted acutely ill patients with myocardial infarction, acute heart failure, arrhythmias, and cardiac complications of the gamut of disease. Referral of patients for tertiary cardiac diagnostic and therapeutic services (including emergency transportation of those who are acutely ill by means of the helicopter that is organic to the hospital) assure that the common cardiac illnesses prompting emergency room admission are matched by more unusual and complex problems.

Both the inpatient and long-term areas provide the fellow with opportunities to manage, under supervision, a variety of cardiac patients. Moreover, an elective rotation at Children's Hospital National Medical Center, located on the same campus, provides an opportunity to gain substantial experience with congenital heart disease.

Clinical investigation is emphasized. Active research protocols are ongoing in investigational angioplasty, antiarrhythmia devices, echocardiography, congestive heart failure, thrombolysis and angiogenesis. Over 100 publications originate from the section each year, and hundreds of abstracts are selected for presentation at national meetings.

At the Washington Hospital Center, accredited subspecialty training programs in internal medicine include not only cardiology but also gastroenterology, infectious disease, hematology, oncology, and rheumatology. These are integral to the institution.
Accredited residences in surgery, urology, obstetrics and gynecology, ophthalmology, and pathology are also organic to Washington Hospital Center. Trainees in neurosurgery, thoracic and cardiovascular surgery, orthopedics, and ENT rotate through the institution as an integral part of university-based programs. Surgical subspecialty fellowships in transplantation, in shock-trauma, and in burns are also based at the Washington Hospital Center.