Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology Fellowship

The Case Western Reserve Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology (CCEP) Fellowship at The MetroHealth System is a fully ACGME accredited 2-year training program for 1 fellow at each year of training. The MetroHealth System has a main campus with 750 beds, two outlying inpatient facilities, and 27 satellites (8 with Cardiology services). The Electrophysiology Section of the Heart and Vascular Center is a clinically and academically busy section with 5 full time board certified CWRU School of Medicine faculty diverse in gender and race.

The Heart and Vascular Center caters to a majority disenfranchised population with complex co- morbidities, multiple financial and social barriers and a racially and ethnically diverse population that provides a rich learning environment for the fellows. Along with the Department of Population Health, the Heart and Vascular Center is active in developing measures to advance the health care in the community with quality improvement programs. 

Intense state of the art clinical training is provided due to the diverse pathology seen at our institution. Our high faculty to fellow ratio allows for individually tailored hands-on experience in the Electrophysiology lab and extensive one on one teaching sessions focused on cardiac electrograms. The first year focuses on basics of Electrophysiology with device implantation, including Left ventricular leads, subcutaneous defibrillators and leadless pacemakers, and fundamentals of ablation including supraventricular tachycardia, simple atrial flutter and pulmonary vein isolation. In the second year of fellowship more complicated procedures are pursued such as laser lead extraction, endocardial and epicardial ventricular tachycardia ablation, complex left atrial ablations and fluoroless ablation. This intense hands-on learning is complemented by rotations in a busy electrophysiology inpatient consultation service and a weekly continuity Electrophysiology clinic.

In addition to the rich clinical environment, the fellowship program has a strong academic foundation that is continuing from the dates of Dr. Louis Rakita who was the first Chair of this department. There is a Bench to Bedside Translational Research program that complements the clinical academics. Besides regular didactics fellows get to interact with world renowned Electrophysiologists through a visiting professorship program. Fellows lead inter-disciplinary clinical conferences with Emergency Medicine, Cardio-thoracic surgery and multi-modality imaging. By virtue of a dedicated mentoring program for fellows, majority of our fellows have pursued academic careers with many taking on leadership roles in research or large academic centers.