Contact: Rachel Cagan, rcagan@acc.org, 202.375.6395

WASHINGTON (Mar 13, 2015) -

The Society of Pediatric Cardiology Training Program Directors joined forces with the American College of Cardiology, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Heart Association to develop the 2015 SPCTPD/ACC/AAP/AHA Training Guidelines for Pediatric Cardiology Fellowship Programs. A total of 63 authors worked on the introduction and eight task force reports making up the guidelines, which are a revision of the 2005 Training Guidelines for Pediatric Cardiology Fellowship Programs.

The introduction explains the overall changes to the training guidelines, including how the guidelines now meet ACGME’s new criteria for training programs. Pulmonary hypertension, advanced heart failure and transplantation is a new task force included in these guidelines, added to the task force chapters on general pediatric cardiology, noninvasive imaging, cardiac catheterization, electrophysiology, critical care, adult congenital heart disease and research. All reports identify the core competencies required of all pediatric cardiology fellows to complete training. Advanced training recommendations for each section are also summarized.

Subspecialty societies that endorsed the task force reports include the Society of Pediatric Echocardiography for the noninvasive imaging report; Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions for the cardiac catheterization report; and the Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Society for the critical care report.

The purpose of the new criteria is to make them more relevant and useful in this era of competency-based training and evaluation,” said Robert D. Ross, M.D., FACC, FAAP, lead author of the document. The hope is that this document will also help to improve quality within practices by ensuring that graduating fellows have the skills and knowledge required for this complex subspecialty.

The full paper will publish online today on the websites of the Society of Pediatric Cardiology Training Program Directors (www.spctpd.com), American College of Cardiology (www.acc.org), and the American Heart Association (www.heart.org/statements), and a link to the full paper on the website of the American Academy of Pediatrics (www.aap.org)

The work of the writing committees was supported exclusively by the participating societies, without commercial support.

Contacts:

SPCTPD: Robert D. Ross, MD, rross@dmc.org, 313.745.5956

ACC: Rachel Cagan, rcagan@acc.org, 202.375.6395

AAP: Debbie Jacobson, djacobson@aap.org, 847.434.7084

AHA: Darcy Spitz, darcy.spitz@heart.org, 212.878.5940

About the American College of Cardiology The American College of Cardiology is a 49,000-member medical society that is the professional home for the entire cardiovascular care team. The mission of the College is to transform cardiovascular care and to improve heart health. The ACC leads in the formation of health policy, standards and guidelines. The College operates national registries to measure and improve care, provides professional medical education, disseminates cardiovascular research and bestows credentials upon cardiovascular specialists who meet stringent qualifications. For more information, visit acc.org.

About the American Academy of Pediatrics

The American Academy of Pediatrics is an organization of 62,000 primary care pediatricians, pediatric medical subspecialists and pediatric surgical specialists dedicated to the health, safety and well-being of infants, children, adolescents and young adults. For more information, visit www.aap.org.

About the American Heart Association

The American Heart Association is devoted to saving people from heart disease and stroke - America's No. 1 and No. 4 killers. We team with millions of volunteers to fund innovative research, fight for stronger public health policies, and provide lifesaving tools and information to prevent and treat these diseases. The Dallas-based association is the nation’s oldest and largest voluntary organization dedicated to fighting heart disease and stroke. To learn more or to get involved, call 1-800-AHA-USA1, visit heart.org or call any of our offices around the country. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

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