Combined Anesthesia/CCM Residency

[joshbc]

Can anyone speak to the level of competitiveness of getting into these residency programs?

Also, I know that a lot of people are doing fellowships to make themselves more marketable. Does this tend to pigeonhole these docs, or are they still able to practice general anesthesia?

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[secants]

I applied to most of them last year because I was somewhat interested in CC and it was just another click on eras; I also thought maybe I'd backdoor into some of the reach programs if I showed interest in their combined program. That being said I'm glad I didn't rank the combined over the categorical because I think I need to really experience a few hardcore ICU months as a resident to see if I really like doing this long term vs that one month I had as a med student that made it seem all rosy and super interesting. I can't say how competitive they are but they will ask you why CC and you have to have a solid reason because I do think they're aware some people might change their minds once accepted.

As for the job prospects, I've been trying to find out myself both at my hospital and online. There aren't many Anes-CC docs to begin with and most I've met are in academics but that being said I've heard you can alternate 1wk ICU and OR easily in academics. In PP it's mostly just OR since ICU is run my pulm/cc groups.

 

[michigangirl]

If by pigeonhole you mean only do ICU, that's actually not that common. It's hard to fulfill your entire clinical commitment at an academic center doing only ICU time-- unless one has protected time due to grants, etc., most of the ICU trained anesthesiologists in my academic center do a significant amount of general anesthesia.