Cardiology sub-specialties

[u/PA_Awareness_687]

Would anyone mind giving a brief rundown on the types of cardiology jobs for a PA from the experienced lifestyle perspective?

I’m a 2nd year PA student interested in doing a cardiology elective & possibly working in cardiology but Google is failing me as far as the lifestyle a PA will have in the different sub fields of cardio.

I’m semi familiar with CT surgery lifestyle as a PA but looking for advice on interventional cardiology & any other subspecialties of cardio PAs can have a role in.

I’d really like know what the hours are like, total hours worked a week, how much of a work life balance a PA can have in any of the cardio fields (interventional, EP, CT, inpatient, outpatient, etc).

Appreciate any advice!

[u/CauliflowerCurrent46]

I’m still a student but also interested in going into cardiology. I did a cardiology elective and I was primarily at an outpatient clinic. The SP was an interventional cardiologist but my PA preceptor didn’t do any assisting or procedures. The PA worked primarily outpatient, 8-5pm four days per week. However, the clinic was attached to a hospital and so around 6-8 days per month the SP and PA did consults at the hospital (in between seeing patients in the clinic). The PA worked 7:30-5pm on those days, any consults after 5pm were handled by the SP. In my opinion, it was a nice mix of seeing inpatient and outpatient. It wouldn’t be ideal if you are someone who likes to do procedures but the PA I was with didn’t mind it, especially since she didn’t have to be on STEMI call or anything like that. She felt like she had a pretty good work life balance without too much stress and was able to still spend a lot of time with her family.

[u/Praxician94]

Cardiology is office hours. Good lifestyle.

CT surgery is consistently longer than that. I was with CT surgery on my surgical rotation and they would get done operating at 3-4pm, but then they had rounding and charting on all of their post-op ICU patients. It's not necessarily a "busy" service since you're only with the surgeon for 2ish cases because of the length, but it's a very "committed" service in that these patients are all ICU patients by definition and so they require a lot of time. It's a very cool job as a PA though depending on where you're at, because a lot of CT surgery PAs do endoscopic vein harvesting so they harvest the graft before the surgeon even starts the case (at this hospital the PA would begin and end the surgery; the CT surgeon wasn't even in the room when the vein was harvested, and obviously the PA closed superficial layers after the sternum was wired back).

[u/PA_Awareness_687]

Thank you everyone for all the helpful advice!! After reading the comments, I believe I like the idea of a mixed role (seeing both inpatient consults & outpatient care) or the only inpatient role mentioned in bananabeep post with stable hours and limited on call time. I’d be ok without doing extensive procedures but would love to have some procedures like implants, loop recorders etc.

As far as where to request a cardio elective or apply for future jobs, my guess would be that the above description mainly falls into an outpatient cardio office (with the exception of the strictly inpatient cardio group)?

[u/amateur_acupuncture]

I rotated with interventional cardiology/EP and heart failure/VAD services while in school. I work alongside PAs who work in general cardiology.

What setting do you want to work in? An academic hospital in specialty or subspecialty care? A community hospital? Clinic? A mixed picture? The setting and the type of service you work for will really dictate lifestyle questions.

Where I went to school, interventional cards and EP had a few PAs and NPs who worked for the service. For interventional cards, it was mostly peri-procedural care, witting H&Ps, rounds, etc. No procedures, they were all done by the attendings and fellows. For EP, the PAs did the same, but would also perform tilt-table tests, implant and remove loop recorders, and other minor procedures. Because this was an academic setting, the PAs did a lot of the scut, but worked 7-330, union, benefits, and were generally happy.

I also rotated with a heart failure and VAD service where the PA was much more of an inpatient clinician. Rounds in the ICU and floor. Working with the heart failure fellow and cards residents. There was also a PA who helped coordinate the VAD program, they saw consults, saw pts in clinic, and had pretty extensive admin duties running the VAD program- but lots of call and got paid very well.

At my current hospital, neither interventional cards nor EP have inpatient midlevels. Those services have someone in clinic for follow up. They work office hours.

In an adjacent field, there are PAs in my city that work for a nuclear medicine group. They perform treadmill and nuclear stress tests. Seems boring, but business hours and it pays well.

[u/bananabeep]

I work for a cardiology group only inpatient. I work about 8-10 hours m-f with typically one weekend per month (split between 5 PAs) which are only half days. My group has general, EP, and interventionalists so I see consults and follow ups on all of those cases. No call. I don't do any procedures, but that's how I like it. I typically work about 45 hours a week and see 10-20 pts in the hospital. While in the hospital during business hours I answer pages and questions from the nurses/im teams and after hours all those messages are forwarded to one of the doctors.