Hospital, City & Duration: Fellowship in Vascular & Interventional Radiology in Lilavati Hospital & Research Centre, Mumbai. This is 1 year fulltime fellowship affiliated to MUHS, incorporating both peripheral and neuro intervention. (Maharashtra University of Health Sciences)

Details about the department: The department of Vascular & Interventional Radiology at hospital has 5 Senior consultants (4 in Peripheral Interventions and 1 in Neurointervention).  They are all reputed names in the field of Intervention nationally and internationally.
The department has only consultants and one fellow. No DNB trainees or other radiology residents are posted.
We are supposed to take care of pretty much everything under the guidance of the consultants. This includes streamlining the OPD, admissions, insurance, preoperative workups, assisting in each and every procedure, actively performing procedures under guidance and taking regular rounds, discharge and streamlining follow ups.

Intervention and hands on exposure: The workload is decent for a single fellow in department. You will get to learn the whole spectrum of Interventional radiology from simple procedures like drainage and PICC lines to complex aneursym repairs. The hands-on exposure is decent but really depends on your rapport and interest. The procedures performed here includes drainages, PICC insertions, biopsy, angios, peripheral arterial and venous plasties, TACE, TARE, TCC insertions, venoplasties, PTBD, biliary stentings, endovascular abdominal aneurysm repairs, neuro interventions like embolisation, flow divertors, coiling and so on.
The consultants are really helpful and they would often go an extra mile to help you.

Academic activities and multi disciplinary meets: The academic activities are very scarce as consultants are quite busy, but they are always keen to clear your doubts. The teaching is more focused on practical aspects.

Duty hours and emergencies/on call duties: You are expected to start your day early and look after the admissions and patient preparation for the procedures planned for the day. You will be on call almost daily as you are expected to look at admissions at any time of day or night. The ward work is really hectic. You are also expected to see references and inform consultants and prepare accordingly.

Fees, salary and leaves: The fee for course is negligible, typically regulated by MUHS. They pay a stipend of 90k with 20 annual leaves.

Accommodation and food: Accommodation is provided and food is included with no additional charges.

Tips on how to secure the fellowship: I was the first fellow as the fellowship started immediately after the COVID-19 pandemic subsided. You can apply via MUHS. They haven’t renewed the seat for this year but are expected to start again from next year onwards. You can inquire with designated fellowship coordinator for the same.

Pros and cons: The pros for the fellowship include the excellent case exposures, decent hands-on, good working environment, decent stipend, and free accommodation and food.
The biggest con is simply a lot of ward work to be done single-handedly. I would advise you to really buck up and do pretty much everything you have done from internship to residency.

Your personal experience at the fellowship: My closing thoughts would be that interventional radiology is vast and one year is simply not enough. But this is a great place to kickstart your lifelong training. The 1 year duration also gives you the advantage to work at other places as you may not wish to remain at a single place for 2 or 3 years. I would really like to add that learning in this branch never stops and you gotta give many years to be expert in Interventional Radiology.

If you have any doubts or want more information, feel free to contact me.

Dr Jaideep Jagani
MBBS, MD, FVIR

Email: jayjagani@yahoo.co.in