Fellowship Curriculum
Blazing the Trail: Temple’s Pulmonary Hypertension Program
Temple is a national leader in caring for patients with all forms of pulmonary hypertension (PH). The program’s rapid growth and international prominence is driven by the highly experienced and well-respected physicians and surgeons who make up Temple Heart and Vascular Institute’s PH team. We perform over 100 balloon pulmonary angioplasty (BPA) procedures each year, and have performed approximately 400 pulmonary thromboendarterectomy (PTE) surgeries to date— one of the largest CTEPH programs in the United States — achieving superb survival and overall clinical outcomes.
Prolific clinical research, spanning the spectrum of pulmonary hypertension and its associated conditions, stems from a large and complex clinical practice piloted by faculty with career-long track records in academic publications and presentations. THVI is routinely represented at national and international conferences, and collaborates with larger multi-center PH clinical trials.
Our faculty are the recipients of many teaching and mentoring awards across multiple institutions, including Johns Hopkins, University of Pennsylvania, and Temple University. With this fellowship, we can ensure that these skills and experiences help guide the trailblazers to follow.
The pulmonary hypertension fellowship is a one year training program.
Fellows will gain invaluable experience in every facet of PH, including:
- Outpatient PH/Right Heart Failure clinic
- A large and nationally unique inpatient-dedicated PH/Right Heart Failure service, including all forms of PH within WHO Groups I-V, with ICU and floor management including advanced PH medical therapy and ECMO
- Right heart catheterization (RHC), including resting RHC and rest-exercise RHC with simultaneous cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) for the evaluation and in-depth physiologic assessment of dyspnea
- Advanced interpretation and application of echocardiography in diagnostic evaluation, hemodynamic phenotyping, and risk assessment of patients with PH
- CTEPH training from initial evaluation to diagnostic workup, including V/Q scans, CT angiography, pulmonary angiography, venography, perioperative PTE management; balloon pulmonary angioplasty (BPA) exposure, and medical management
- Cardio-Obstetrics training with specific emphasis on high-risk pregnancy patients with PH
- Weekly multidisciplinary CTEPH evaluations of patients from across the USA
- Weekly inpatient review of the inpatient PH/Right Heart Failure service
- Close collaboration with the Cardiac Surgery, Left Heart Failure/Transplant/VAD, Lung Transplant, and Rheumatology programs
- Direct involvement in Medical Education specific to Pulmonary Hypertension including but not limited to Lewis Katz School of Medicine medical students, internal medicine residents, and specialty fellows
- Scholarly and research endeavors with the mentorship and guidance of internationally renowned expert faculty with hundreds of peer-reviewed publications and textbook chapters
*This fellowship is partially funded by an educational grant from Janssen.