Interventional Cardiology to Join Medical Specialties Matching Program in 2025

December 7, 2022—The Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions (SCAI) announced that the interventional cardiology (IC) subspecialty will join the Medical Specialties Matching Program (“the Match”) in 2025.

In the Match process, specialty candidates and training programs simultaneously match to fill Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education—accredited medical specialty training positions.

The initiative to join the Match was led by SCAI’s IC Match Task Force: a group of cardiovascular and IC program directors, SCAI leaders, and fellows. The Task Force advocated for IC to join the formal matching process, as well as to shift the application deadline so trainees can apply on completion of their second general cardiology training year, giving trainees more time to decide which subspecialty is the best fit.

The SCAI website lists the following in support of the IC Match:

• “The Match provides candidates with a fair opportunity to interview and assess the spectrum of programs that might best meet their professional, personal, and logistic objectives—without the pressure of an unreasonable deadline to commit.”
• “The Match establishes an agreement so that an accepted position may not be abandoned if a more desirable program or candidate is later identified.”
• “The Match sets a reasonable standardized time frame for the application, review of candidates, and the interview process.”
• “The Match enables programs to address diversity and equity access for all trainees.”
• “SCAI is the home for interventional cardiologists and, therefore, will lead the effort to ensure fairness in the recruitment of a diverse, equitable, and inclusive pipeline of future interventional cardiologists through the Match program.”

J. Dawn Abbott, MD, FSCAI, and Douglas Drachman, MD, FSCAI, are Co-Chairs of the SCAI IC Match Task Force.

Dr. Abbott, MD, FSCAI, commented, “IC’s ability to participate in the Match will help support fairness and diversity in recruiting, and we are excited to see the positive impact this will have on future generations.”

“We are thrilled that IC programs across the country have shown overwhelming support for IC joining the Match in 2025,” added Dr. Drachman. “Our profession is evolving, and the overall landscape of health care is changing. IC joining the Match will allow for us to recruit top talent who have received appropriate training and are also committed to elevating the profession.”

The SCAI announcement explained that incoming IC fellow applications will begin in December 2022 without the Match. Applications will not open in December 2023; rather, the Match and applications will reopen in summer 2024 for IC fellows to start in July 2025. More information about the timeline can be found at www.scai.org/match.