The Department of Medicine

Cardiovascular Disease Fellowship Program

Our mission is to cultivate a culture of intellectual curiosity with engagement of learners and teachers, spanning a comprehensive clinical experience and opportunities for research and discovery. Therefore, we aim to:

Graduate clinically astute cardiologists capable of achieving diverse career goals;

Continue to foster a uniquely collegial/supportive educational environment that fulfills the career goals of both fellows and faculty.

Learn About Our Program

Thank you for your interest in the University of Tennessee Health Science Center College of Medicine, Knoxville (UTHSC COM-Knoxville) Cardiovascular Disease Fellowship program. Please explore all the opportunities our program has to offer and contact us with any questions.

Fellowship Applicants: Learn About Our Program

This three year, ACGME approved program is designed to develop the internal medicine residency program graduate into an expert consultative cardiologist capable of pursing a clinical or academic career or further subspecialty training in cardiovascular medicine.

Diverse clinical opportunities facilitated by experienced, attentive faculty in a collegial, shoulder-to-shoulder setting combine with research and other scholarship undertakings to provide a supportive educational atmosphere for the physician dedicated to providing compassionate, patient-centered care while cultivating a career devoted to lifelong learning.

Clinical activities include inpatient consultative services and outpatient staff and continuity clinics as well as a comprehensive curriculum to develop mastery of invasive and noninvasive diagnostic procedures: electrocardiography (ECG), outpatient Holter/telemetry monitoring, echocardiography (both transthoracic and transesophageal), exercise and pharmacologic stress testing with ECG/echocardiography/myocardial perfusion imaging, right and left heart catheterization, invasive electrophysiology (EP) testing, EP device interrogation and evaluation. Fellows also have the opportunity to participate in EP device implantation, EP ablative therapies, temporary cardiovascular support device implantation (e.g. intraaortic balloon pumps and Impella), and catheter-based structural heart procedures, including transcatheter valve replacement/repair, septal defect closures, and septal myocardial ablations.

Our fellows have presented the fruit of their scholarly activities at regional and national meetings, winning awards for their research. Our graduates have chosen careers in all aspects of cardiology, successfully matching to advanced fellowships in interventional cardiology and EP as well as entering both private practice and academic careers.

Get to Know Us

Anne Kassira, MD
Program Director

Taylor Beckmann, DO
Fellow

Jackson Mosley, MD
Fellow

Our Campus

Facilities

Inpatient training takes place at the University of Tennessee Medical Center (UTMC), a tertiary referral center and Level-I Trauma Center serving the entire East Tennessee region. During the consultative and critical care rotations, the fellow treats inpatients with the entire range of cardiovascular disorders. During the required and elective rotations, the fellow receives extensive training in electrocardiography, exercise stress testing, echocardiography, nuclear cardiology, and diagnostic cardiac catheterization. Higher level training is available in any of the above subspecialty areas at the fellow's request and with program director approval. Ambulatory training takes place in the Heart Lung Vascular Institute, which adjoins the hospital. There the fellow evaluates cardiovascular disease patients in a private practice setting and follows the fellow's own panel of patients in a continuity clinic. Throughout the fellowship, the fellow works closely with a research mentor on a research project of the fellow's choosing. The fellow is provided with six months of dedicated research time during the third year of the fellowship to complete the research project.

Center of Excellence

The Heart Lung Vascular Institute is one of the medical center's six Centers of Excellence. Each center is dedicated to providing comprehensive care to patients and expert commitment plays a critical role in the hospital's ongoing success.The Heart Lung Vascular Institute brings together expertise in clinical care, teaching and research. Patients receive exceptional healthcare combined with patient-centered care, premier technology and extensive patient/community education in one convenient outpatient facility.

Program Strengths

The fellowship program is an integral part of the UTHSC COM-Knoxville Department of Medicine program that has been in existence since 1956, with continued full accreditation since its inception. The UTHSC COM-Knoxville program has over 280 residents and fellows training in 13 ACGME accredited core residency programs and 19 ACGME accredited subspecialty fellowship programs.
UTHSC COM-Knoxville provides fellows with an excellent support system, including nursing, pharmacy, library, laboratory, nutritional support, social workers, consultative support from subspecialists, and an excellent Resident Assistance Program. UT Medical has state-of-the-art diagnostic and therapeutic facilities with an electronic medical record system, the CoPath pathology information system, and the PACS radiology information system.
UTHSC COM-Knoxville is minutes away from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, main campus and has the resources of this large institution at its disposal. UTHSC COM-Knoxville has a close working relationship with the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, located in Memphis. Teachers and researchers at UTHSC COM-Knoxville collaborate and share facilities with colleagues at the prestigious University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine, Knoxville, and Oak Ridge National Laboratories.
UTHSC COM-Knoxville draws patients from a large geographic area in East Tennessee, southeast Kentucky, northwest North Carolina, and western Virginia. University of Tennessee Medical Center is a Level 1 Trauma Center, with three helicopters providing transport of critically ill patients, including numerous acute myocardial infarction patients. Due to the tertiary referral nature of the university program, a large number of patients with a broad spectrum of clinical pathologies are available for both clinical experience and research studies.
The fellowship faculty practice, University Cardiology, is located in offices connected to the hospital and is part of UT Medical's Heart Lung Vascular Institute. The large University Cardiology practice sees over 200 patients daily from all over the East Tennessee region and neighboring states.
The fellowship faculty physicians have trained at some of the best training programs in the country, including Beth Israel Hospital, Boston University, Cedars Sinai, Cleveland Clinic, Duke University, Emory University, Georgetown, Harbor UCLA, LSU, Medical University of South Carolina, Mt Sinai, Tulane, University of Florida, UT Southwestern, Vanderbilt, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest, Yale, University of Pennsylvania, University of Vermont, University of Virginia and our own University of Tennessee Knoxville.
The volume of cardiovascular procedures performed annually at UT Medical, in both the hospital and clinic, is substantial, with more than:

33,485 echocardiograms (1976 TEE's)
2971 cardiac catheterizations (771 PCI's)
345 Structural interventions include:

164 TAVR's
22 MitraClips
159 Watchman

868 cardioversions
957 devices
Stress tests

1330 cardiac PET
1970 SPECT

1858 cardiac CTs
566 cardiac MRIs
951 Ablations
75 Impella