The Wake Forest University School of Medicine is part of Wake Forest University, and in conjunction with North Carolina Baptist Hospital, forms a Medical Center, which is a regional referral center for an area of nearly five million people. The Medical Center trains students in medicine as well as in allied health fields including physician assistants, medical technologists and nurse anesthetists. The Medical Center offers training programs for house officers in 23 specialties, each of which is approved by the Council of Medical Education in Hospitals of the American Medical Association and their respective specialty boards. The Medical School also has basic science programs with graduate training in Biochemistry, Cancer Biology, Comparative Medicine, Neurobiology/Anatomy and Physiology/Pharmacology. Wake Forest University has very large and distinguished Department of Public Health Sciences which offers graduate training in Epidemiology. The Medical Center is well known for its outstanding clinical training but also has placed additional emphasis on continuing achievements in medical research.

Cardiology Fellowship Program


The Cardiovascular Diseases Training Program at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC has been an accredited Cardiovascular Diseases Training Program for the past 40 years. There are currently 12 General Cardiology Fellows, 2 Combined Program Fellows, 3 Interventional Fellows, and 1 Electrophysiology Fellow in the program. The training program is integrated within the Department of Internal Medicine. The Cardiovascular Diseases Training Program director is Dr. Robert J. Applegate, who has served in this position since 1993. The Chief of the Section of Cardiology is Dr. William C. Little. The faculty involved in the Cardiovascular Diseases Training Program includes 22 full-time faculty and four emeriti subspecialty faculty. The section has a large clinical volume and an extremely productive research program. Five faculty members are principal investigators for NIH grants, holding nine NIH grants as of the beginning of this academic year.

We have active basic and clinical research programs. NIH-funded studies of left ventricular pump function, sarcomere dynamics of normal and failing muscle, and the molecular biology of thrombosis and restenosis are being carried out in our basic laboratories. Clinical projects currently underway include studies of the mechanism and prevention of restenosis following PTCA, the pathogenesis of MI, pharmacologic regression of atherosclerosis assessed by quantitative coronary angiography, 3-dimensional echocardiography, MRI myocardial and coronary imaging, the pathophysiology of aging on LV function, intra-coronary ultrasound, cardiac rehabilitation, radio-frequency ablation techniques, and pharmacologic trials for CHF.