2 path questions

Hello everyone,

I am new to the SDN forum. I hope you all don't mind if I as a couple questions about path.

1.) I know that everyone says that the 4 year residency should be chosen over the 3 year because it will make you more marketable and everyone else does it etc., but in my situation (older nontraditional student), every year is precious. How much would the 3 year residency (instead of the 4) hurt my possible career as a pathologist?

2.) Does not doing an intership year prevent pathologists from being able to prescribe medications etc. I am curious because no matter what specialty I end up being in, I would like to do pro bono general medicine type stuff for the community during some of my free time.

Thank you guys for your time!

ctownmytown said:

Hello everyone,

I am new to the SDN forum. I hope you all don't mind if I as a couple questions about path.

1.) I know that everyone says that the 4 year residency should be chosen over the 3 year because it will make you more marketable and everyone else does it etc., but in my situation (older nontraditional student), every year is precious. How much would the 3 year residency (instead of the 4) hurt my possible career as a pathologist?

2.) Does not doing an intership year prevent pathologists from being able to prescribe medications etc. I am curious because no matter what specialty I end up being in, I would like to do pro bono general medicine type stuff for the community during some of my free time.

Thank you guys for your time!

Click to expand...

1. Not at all if you stay in academics. In PP some say it hurts you, but I know people who were AP only and CP only and got good PP jobs.

2. No. However, giving meds to people (like your friends) is considered to be in bad taste since you are giving medications without official "office visits". That means that if you give Penicillin to your neighbor and he gets anaphylactic shock and dies, you are totally boned. If you were in an office setting you would have records that you fully examined the patient. As far as the pro-bono stuff, you'll probably forget about it once you start residency.

Thanks for the info, gbwillner, and the good advice about not giving prescriptions to friends. Hopefully I'll be where you guys are in a few years. Good luck with your careers!

ctownmytown said:

... I am curious because no matter what specialty I end up being in, I would like to do pro bono general medicine type stuff for the community during some of my free time...

Click to expand...

"pro bono general medicine type stuff"??? I don't know of any pathologist out there doing any sort of gen med out in the community, pro bono or otherwise. Stick to family medicine. It's only 3 years. Lots of pro bono gen med after.

I'm wondering if you have a misconception about pathology residency. Pathology doesn't require an intern year anymore. If you do one it doesn't count for anything. That requirement or option was eliminated years ago.

Perhaps you just mean "3 year residency" in terms of AP only. If so, that may limit your employment possiblities, particularly if you don't want to do academics. Private jobs would be limited to large reference labs or large private hospitals, likely, unless you had a fellowship in derm or something in which case it would probably be a smaller reference lab or you would do predominantly dermpath. Of course, there are lots of refernece lab jobs out there. AP only without any fellowships is going to be much more difficult unless you plan to do at least half time in research and be funded. There are very few people, it seems, who don't do any fellowships. You have to bring something to the group that hires you. Whether that is overall general well rounded skill or expertise in a subspecialty or good business sense or whatever. It will be hard to do with 3 years of AP only or CP only unless you already have experience in something.

Your best bet would probably be AP/CP + a fellowship or some sort.

Realistically the difference we're talking about here is one year. Just one year could have a dramatic impact on what you can do with the rest of your life.

If you are even remotely undecided/flexible about academics vs private practice you need to be AP/CP. Seriously. It's just one year and it could open doors.

Generally, you will need at least one fellowship. This has been what the job market demands since they eliminated the transitional year (which everyone used as unofficial fellowship time anyway).

Forget about the pro-bono work; find another outlet for your altruism. You would be exposing yourself to major liability issues by practicing outside of the scope of your expertise.