Tell Us Your Story!

Published January 21, 2016

We at SpringBoard Healthcare are very interested in how people enter into Cardiovascular Medicine.
We asked one of our current travelers, Jim, to share his story with us.
Like many people in medicine, Jim’s early training came from the military. He was first involved in respiratory therapy, and then opted to start a military – 2 year course in cardiovascular medicine. Jim was Valedictorian of his class. The Commander, who was also the Department Chair and Director of Cardiology, handpicked Jim to be trained in Pediatric Cath. Jim loved working with children and stayed in Pediatric Cath for four years. During this time, he started learn Pediatric EP cases. He observed at first, then scrubbed cases, then learned how to Pace and Record. Jim participated in Pediatric EP cases for 18 months.
After leaving the military, Jim worked at a Georgia facility, where he learned to Map. He started pushing buttons like he was told by the Reps. The Reps saw that he showed interest, so they used their company’s educational funds to send Jim to be trained in mapping.
These days, Jim is traveling to fun destinations, bringing his knowledge of Cardiovascular Medicine to different labs around the country. Mapping is changing so fast into high voltage mapping, the merging of CAT scans and regular mapping as “side by side” tools in EP.
Jim says that many things have changed in Cardiovascular Medicine over the years, but what has not changed is his desire to always learn the next new procedure.
Jim’s advice for anyone starting out in Cardiovascular Medicine as a Tech: Always try to anticipate the next move of the Doctor, it will help you become more valuable in the lab.
We, at SpringBoard Healthcare thank Jim for his story, any errors in clinical statements in this article are due to the Author of this article!
We want to hear your story of getting into Cardiovascular Medicine! Please tell us in the comments!