The Advanced Cardiac Imaging Fellowship at Boston Children’s Hospital has a legacy of more than 30 years in training pediatric cardiologists for academic careers focused on imaging congenital and pediatric heart disease.

Each year, the program accepts two to three fellows for comprehensive training in echocardiography (including transthoracic, transesophageal, intraoperative, and fetal), cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging (CMR), and computed tomography (CT). Fellows typically spend approximately 80 percent of their time on clinical activities and 20 percent on research. Clinical time is divided relatively evenly among the imaging modalities, with some flexibility based on individual interests and programmatic needs.

Fellows participate in imaging-related clinical research and receive mentorship in both research and teaching. They are actively involved in a variety of didactic and clinical conferences, including:

• Echo didactic conferences (Mondays and Tuesdays)
• CMR/CT conference (Thursdays)
• Fellowship core curriculum lecture series (Fridays)

Additionally, fellows play integral roles in the Cardiac Imaging Division’s Morbidity and Mortality and research conferences.

Applicants to the Advanced Cardiac Imaging Fellowship must be on track to complete a categorical pediatric cardiology fellowship — or an equivalent international training program — prior to the start of the imaging fellowship. The imaging fellowship program primarily fills its positions through a match process administered by sfmatch. Both applicants and fellowship programs submit confidential rank-ordered lists to sfmatch, which uses a computerized algorithm to pair applicants and programs. For detailed information on the application timeline and submission process, please visit their website at https://sfmatch.org/specialty/pediatric-advanced-cardiac-imaging-fellowship/overview.

Contact information

Hope Blackwell
Boston Children’s Hospital, Department of Cardiology
300 Longwood Ave., BCH 3215
Boston, MA 02115
617-355-7366; fax: 617-739-6282
hope.blackwell@childrens.harvard.edu

Cardiac Imaging Fellows

Lauren Crafts

Cardiac Imaging Fellow

• Hometown: Pennington, N.J.
• Undergraduate school: Georgetown University
• Medical school: Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
• Post-graduate training: Boston Combined Residency Program, Boston Children’s Hospital (pediatric cardiology fellowship)
• Academic interests: Imaging
• Hobbies: Running, Pilates, watching sports

Shanique Sterling

Cardiac Imaging Fellow

• Hometown: Kingston, Jamaica
• Medical school: University of the West Indies
• Post-graduate training: University of Miami-Holtz Children's Hospital (pediatric residency), Harvard Medical School-Boston Children's Hospital (pediatric cardiology fellowship)
• Academic interests: Cardiac imaging — I love to image the heart (i.e. all things echo, cardiac MRI and cardiac CT-related
• Hobbies: Traveling — experiencing new places, cultures and food, playing tennis and volleyball, cycling, going to sporting events and concerts, reading fictional novels and autobiographies, watching TV shows with my husband, and in general spending quality time with my family.

Benjamin Zielonka

Cardiac Imaging Fellow

• Hometown: Philadelphia, Pa.
• Undergraduate school: Washington University in St. Louis
• Medical school: University of Pennsylvania
• Post-graduate training: Boston Combined Residency Program (residency), Boston Children’s Hospital (cardiology fellowship)
• Academic interests: Non-invasive imaging, clinical research.
• Hobbies: Exploring new restaurants with my wife, Ally, chasing my son Owen around the green spaces in Brookline and Jamaica Plain, being disappointed by Philadelphia sports teams.