Interventional and Structural Cardiology Fellowship Program

Interventional and structural cardiology training in San Diego

Interventional and Structural Cardiovascular Fellows

Interventional and structural cardiology training in San Diego

The Scripps Clinic Interventional and Structural Cardiology Fellowship Program is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) and organized under the directorship of Curtiss T. Stinis, MD. The one-year program accepts three fellows per year.


After the completion of the ACGME-approved year, fellows will be offered a second year of training dedicated to structural heart and peripheral vascular disease interventions. During this time they will also function as junior faculty members and independent operators during coronary interventional procedures.

Program highlights

The interventional and structural cardiology fellowship is a rigorous training program that provides fellows with the largest procedural volume on the West Coast and one of the highest procedure-to-fellow ratios in the country.


Fellows graduating from the program will be poised to assume positions of leadership in the field of interventional cardiology.

Procedural volumes

  • 2,500 coronary interventions per year
  • 380 transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) procedures per year (second largest TAVR center in California)
  • 175 peripheral vascular procedures per year
  • 75 MitraClip procedures per year (third largest in California)
  • 44 percutaneous atrial septal defect (ASD)/patent foramen ovale (PFO)/ ventricular septal defect (VSD) procedures per year 
  • Very active left ventricular assist device (LVAD) and mechanical circulatory support (MCS) programs using Impella devices and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO)

Procedural expertise

During the first year, fellows will acquire the following procedural expertise:


  • Percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty and stent placement
  • Rotational atherectomy
  • Laser atherectomy
  • Mechanical thrombectomy
  • Intravascular ultrasound
  • Optical coherence tomography 
  • Distal protection devices


In addition to learning coronary interventional techniques, fellows will have the opportunity to undergo dedicated non-coronary training during a second year of training to include:


  • Percutaneous balloon valvuloplasty
  • Transcatheter aortic and mitral valve replacement procedures
  • Transcatheter closure of intra-cardiac communications (ASD, PFO, patent ductus arteriosus [PDA], VSD)
  • Alcohol septal ablation for hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy
  • MitraClip procedures
  • Watchman/left atrial appendage closure procedures
  • Peripheral vascular interventions, which include the following distributions:
  • Subclavian
  • Renal
  • Mesenteric
  • Lower extremity (including complex interventions for critical limb ischemia)