Neurology and Pain Medicine

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Just curious if anyone knows how competitive it is for a neurologist to get into a interventional pain management fellowship? What are the factors that programs are looking for? Does doing an anesthesia residency give the applicant a much better chance?

Originally Posted by TheSeanieB

Just curious if anyone knows how competitive it is for a neurologist to get into a interventional pain management fellowship? What are the factors that programs are looking for? Does doing an anesthesia residency give the applicant a much better chance?

An anesthesia residency traditionally gives a resident a much better chance of getting an interventional pain fellowship than a neurology residency. Most of the fellowships are run by anesthesia. However, these are obtainable for neuro residents if you (1) go to an outstanding neurology residency where the fellows have successs with competitive fellowships or (2) you take buffing your residency for pain medicine seriously from day one and do rotations in pain for letters of recommendation and (even better) manage some research or a publication in pain medicine areas. This latter would still require certain existing pain docs or connections at the residency you choose.

Another option that is solid for pain medicine fellowship applicants is a PMR residency, which last I knew were fairly non-competitive.