how hard is it to land a fellowship via Community route?

[The wise one]

Greetings,

I have been talking to my attending about my plans and they have recommended going to an academic instead of a community/ unopposed programs d/t politics/ fellowships placement; etc..

Is there any truth in this? Has anyone from a community program struggled to land a fellowship. I am interested in CT after GS.

Thank You,

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[droliver]

Not really necessary except for surg onc and peds (generally speaking) but may depend on the quality/reputation of your program. Over my 15yrs on clinical faculty @ a community program off the top of my headwe have had a lot people do CRS (8) and vascular (6) with a smattering of plastics (3), breast (2), trauma/cc (3), CTVS (3).

So definitely doable. With the new integrated vascular and ctvs trend, there will be fewer opportunities in those specialties for everyone doing GS

 

[Lem0nz]

As said above, if you do well at a community program you can match into any fellowship except surg-onc and peds surg for the most part.

I will say as a caveat, if you are middle of the road you may struggle to get a good fellowship and go quite far down your rank list (saw this happen at my program). If you do poorly from a smaller community program you may not match right away and have to have some backup plans (saw this as well).

 

[WinslowPringle]

I went to a community program. Did fine on ABSITE, avoided research as much as possible, and matched to my preferred fellowship after getting invites pretty much everywhere I wanted. Had a co-resident from match into surg onc and most of my co-residents matched to fellowship where they wanted in what they wanted.

Unless you want to do peds surg (and you said you wanted CT...), I would recommend evaluating community programs. There can be some good advantages in terms of hours, autonomy, freedom from academic hierarchy and rigamarole. Every program is different, of course. Evaluate the CT department - if there are some guys there who are willing to let you scrub and first assist, you can have an amazing experience, even better than many academic places where the fellows are taking everything. (I feel so sorry for the GS residents at my fellowship.....). And just because the attendings are at a smaller name place, doesn’t mean they don’t know people at other programs. CT is a small enough field, you’d be surprised a who knows whom.

 

[YCAGA]

Not really necessary except for surg onc and peds (generally speaking) but may depend on the quality/reputation of your program. Over my 15yrs on clinical faculty @ a community program off the top of my headwe have had a lot people do CRS (8) and vascular (6) with a smattering of plastics (3), breast (2), trauma/cc (3), CTVS (3).

So definitely doable. With the new integrated vascular and ctvs trend, there will be fewer opportunities in those specialties for everyone doing GS

Do you think there will be that large of a drop in vascular and CT surgery fellowships in the next 5-10 years (time-line for current med students applying gen surg)? At least for CT, the integrated programs seem to be exclusively at very big name academic places, whereas there are many CT fellowships that aren't at academic powerhouses, so I am not sure that those fellowships would convert to I6 any time soon.

 

[LOL-NAD]

Not really necessary except for surg onc and peds (generally speaking) but may depend on the quality/reputation of your program. Over my 15yrs on clinical faculty @ a community program off the top of my headwe have had a lot people do CRS (8) and vascular (6) with a smattering of plastics (3), breast (2), trauma/cc (3), CTVS (3).

So definitely doable. With the new integrated vascular and ctvs trend, there will be fewer opportunities in those specialties for everyone doing GS

Do you think the same is true regarding HCA or any other corporate-based community surgery residencies? New or well-established?

 

[WinslowPringle]

Do you think the same is true regarding HCA or any other corporate-based community surgery residencies? New or well-established?

HCA is, in my opinion, a horrible corporate overlord and I personally would not apply to any HCA- only residency regardless of new or well-established. Also, their MediTech is the most dangerous EMR I’ve encountered and you should avoid it like the plague.