Applications are invited for the post of Clinical Fellow [ST3+ Grade] (Heart Failure) to commence in the Department of Cardiology at Homerton University Hospital for twelve months in the first instance.
The post provides training in specialist heart failure services, in echocardiography, as well as in general adult cardiology. It also involves the post holder in the organisation and running of the weekly departmental educational seminar programme.
Although the post does not have a recognised national training number, it provides the same exposure to, and experience in, cardiology as our numbered cardiology training post. It gives excellent preparation for those wishing to pursue a career in cardiology or in hospital medicine, offering clinical experience, training and the opportunity to undertake teaching, audit & research. The majority of our prior Homerton cardiology clinical fellow post holders have gone on to secure numbered training posts in cardiology, and / or research fellow posts in peer reviewed research programmes funded by charitable grant awarding bodies (such as BHF or CRY) at postgraduate centres (such as UCLH or St. George’s), in the UK, as well as in Australia and Switzerland, seven of whom are now consultants (six in cardiology).
The department offers core & advanced echocardiography (transthoracic, contrast, transoesophageal & stress echocardiography), CT coronary angiography and other diagnostic services (ETT, ambulatory ECG & BP monitoring, transcranial Doppler scanning & portable ECG event monitoring). The department’s heart failure services include, a cardio-renal clinic, a hospital based heart failure nurse specialist and a team of seven community heart failure nurse specialists.
There is no on-call commitment for this post.
The department has close links with St Bartholomew’s Hospital and with the Royal Brompton Hospital, for invasive cardiac investigation and management. Device therapy is provided by these two regional cardiac centres. There are specialist arrhythmia clinics led by consultant electrophysiology cardiologists from Barts and from the Royal Brompton Hospital. Consultant cardiothoracic surgeons (Mr Kolvekar & Mr Lall, both from St Bartholomew’s Hospital) attend monthly JCC MDTs at Homerton. The Homerton heart failure team works closely with Dr Stanley Fan, consultant nephrologist at the Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel, and also with the heart muscle disease service at St Bartholomew’s Hospital and with the cardiac transplant team at the Royal Papworth Hospital (now located in Cambridge).
Dr Bowker has an MSc in epidemiology & biostatistics, has experience in population-based research and has supervised higher degrees submitted by postgraduate students at Homerton and elsewhere. Dr Dutta Roy has a research background with specific interest in angiogenesis and inflammation .
The Cardiology Department has eight Consultants (three of whom have joint appointments at Barts), one Associate Specialist, three middle grades [at ST3+ level, - one of which is this advertised post] and six junior doctors [one IMT ST1/2, one clinical fellow (ST1/2 Grade), one FY2 & three FY1s].
The post holder will be encouraged to pursue their own interests in terms of research. Since 2010 Homerton has been contributing to the National Heart Failure Audit Project run by the National Institute for Cardiovascular Outcomes Research (NICOR). Homerton has set up its own systems for the storage and local retention of data (including ethnicity) on in-patient heart failure activity, - from which data uploads are made at appropriate intervals to NICOR. Similar data collection systems exist for other cardiac services and conditions at Homerton. These data have been used for health services research on gender and ethnic interaction in the utilisation of the RACPC, and opportunities exist for extending this approach to the primary / secondary care interface with respect to heart failure services. Other research opportunities relate to the advanced echocardiography techniques available at Homerton, and are not limited to the themes mentioned above.
Applicants should have worked in hospital medicine at the appropriate level, and ideally have experience in cardiology.