(P221) CURRENT AND FUTURE INTERVENTIONAL CARDIOLOGY WORKFORCE IN CANADA: RESULTS FROM A NATIONAL SURVEY

Background: Interventional cardiologists (IC) are physicians who have undertaken further 1-3 years of training following their cardiology specialist qualifications. Ensuring an adequate number of ICs in any community is necessary for optimised cardiac care. To understand the current and upcoming IC workforce in Canada, we performed a national survey.

METHODS AND RESULTS: An online survey was conducted between September 2023-March 2024, and sent to three groups of physicians in the Canadian interventional cardiology workforce: 1) current interventional cardiology fellows, 2) cath lab directors and 3) all fellowship program directors. A total of 114 responses were analyzed. This represented 56 current fellows (76% response rate), 23 recent graduates, 26 cath lab directors (65% response rate) and 9 program directors (45% response rate).

Canadian cath labs operate with a mean of 7 ICs (range 3-14). The current interventional cardiology attending workforce consists of 94% males and 6% females, with age range from early 30’s to late 60’s. Results indicate that over 50% of cath labs have at least one IC over the age of 60 (Figure A), which is in line with the report that only 12% of cath labs foresee a vacant position within the next 12 months, but 82% foresee a vacancy within the next 5 years.

IC training is taking longer, and there is a slow increase in international fellows. 35% of current fellows completed their cardiology residency in Canada. The average duration of interventional training prior to a fellow’s first attending job is 2.9 years. The majority (73%) of current fellows report plans for further specialisation training after their current fellowship, with the top two reasons being to ‘increase skillset’ and become ‘more employable’.

Most Canadian interventional fellows hope to stay in Canada post fellowship (84%), and 60% of international fellows would favour staying in Canada too (11% ‘most definitely’, 49% ‘would highly consider’). There is a slight discrepancy in perception between cath lab directors and current fellows regarding the most important factors for employability, with cath lab directors perceiving ‘subspecialised skillset’ and ‘excellent general interventional skills’ as the top two factors, whilst current fellows perceive ‘network’ as most important, followed by ‘subspecialised skillset’ (Figure B).

Conclusion: The interventional cardiology workforce in Canada is ageing, and in the next 5 years, likely to see more retirement. The biggest change over the last five years is further demand for subspecialised skillset, leading to longer training duration for fellows to increase their market competitiveness.