Prospective interventional cardiology fellows can breathe a sigh of relief. Starting in 2025, three-quarters of interventional cardiology fellowship programs will transition to a voluntary match system.
“The Match” uses an algorithm to place resident and fellowship applicants into their most preferred programs that also prefer them.
- While all other CV specialty fellowships already use a match system to place candidates, IC has been the lone exception. That will change in the 2024-2025 application cycle.
The Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI) initiated the change, hoping that the match system will promote “fairness, equity, and thoughtfulness.”
- Of the 177 accredited IC training programs, 136 signed on to SCAI’s initiative in support of the match– just surpassing the 75% threshold needed to change the precedent.
The current system, which will be phased out in 2024, can be chaotic and anxiety-inducing for applicants. There is no central information hub to find out key details about available programs and positions, which prompts both the applicants and programs to waste a lot of effort.
- When a candidate is offered a position, they have a certain amount of time to either accept or decline the offer – sometimes as little as 48 hours – and often don’t have the opportunity to complete interviews at other institutions. Cardiologists have made it clear that they hate this.
The Takeaway
The Match should help shift the decision-making power in favor of the candidate, rather than the program. In the next couple of years, candidates will have the opportunity to interview and assess the programs that might best meet their professional, personal, and logistic objectives without the pressure of an unreasonable deadline to commit.
