2013 Volume 29 Issue 3 Pages 140-146
A pediatric cardiologist must be able to provide primary care for a patient with serious heart problems on the basis of quick diagnosis and then decide an appropriate therapeutic strategy in collaboration with cardiovascular surgeons.To provide young trainees with a good education and training,we divide our training program into 6 major categories:outpatient care,ECG,echocardiography,cardiac catheterization and intervention,intensive care,and adult congenital heart disease.For each topic of study and training,a stepwise goal must be set to acquire basic knowledge and technical skills in a fixed period of time.However,since department of pediatric cardiology in general hospitals are usually smaller than those of children's hospitals or university hospitals,we often challenged by an inadequate number of trained personnel.When adequate numbers of personnel cannot be obtained,the workload for individual trainee physicians tends to be excessive for adequate training.To overcome staff shortages and enlist new personnel,a deliberate and informative training program which makes trainees realize that they are making good progress is essential.It is also important to constantly attract future pediatric cardiologists to the department by maintaining reasonable patient volume,making presentations at annual conferences and so on.
