Dermpath fellowships that prefer path people

Started by alabaster
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alabaster

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I've heard that on average dermpath fellowships prefer derm applicants to path applicants. One exception I heard is the Univ of Florida in Gainesville. Can anyone confirm this? Does anyone know other programs that might prefer pathies or are at least indifferent?
 
alabaster said:
I've heard that on average dermpath fellowships prefer derm applicants to path applicants.
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Based on my research, I don't think that is true at all. It seems well balanced with, if anything, a bias for path.
 
dermpathlover said:
Based on my research, I don't think that is true at all. It seems well balanced with, if anything, a bias for path.
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I've heard from dermies that compred to Mohs, it's a cakewalk for them to land a dermpath fellowship. Obviously, it is not true for path people. Do you think my dermie sources are incorrect?
 
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Not having any intentions of doing dermpath whatsoever...but I am concerned with two things when I look at my peers who ARE interested in dermpath:

1. Dermpath being a part of Dermatology departments instead of Pathology departments at certain institutions.

2. Derm residents had more competitive applications when they applied for residency compared to path residents (not to say that path residents are dumb). So now as a path resident, you're not only up against the gunner path residents who are competing for a dermpath spot but also the dermies who were gunners to begin with. That being said, I'm curious as to the percentage of the derm residents look at dermpath as a fellowship. Is it a minority? Or do lots of derm residents start residency thinking, "Oh yeah, I'm gonna do a dermpath fellowship...yeehaw!". My gut feeling is that you have so many more path residents who are, from the start, interested in dermpath when compared to derm residents who start out residency. I might be wrong though...somebody show this ****** the light! :laugh:
 
I think it varies. In general, the programs run through dermatology tend to attract more dermatology residents, just because they are familiar with the staff, etc. Pathologists attract pathologists. Neither is a guarantee though.

In terms of derm people getting dermpath, apparently it isn't that popular anymore for dermatology people, since the other fields (Mohs, laser, whatever) starting making $$$ they are flocking to that instead, although there still are a lot who want dermpath. In general, every candidate is going to be evaluated individually, and their background isn't going to be the deciding factor.
 
yaah said:
I think it varies. In general, the programs run through dermatology tend to attract more dermatology residents, just because they are familiar with the staff, etc. Pathologists attract pathologists. Neither is a guarantee though.

In terms of derm people getting dermpath, apparently it isn't that popular anymore for dermatology people, since the other fields (Mohs, laser, whatever) starting making $$$ they are flocking to that instead, although there still are a lot who want dermpath. In general, every candidate is going to be evaluated individually, and their background isn't going to be the deciding factor.
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I too agree dermpath is becoming much less popular with dermy crowd than it was in yesteryear. That is due to a very a strong jobmarket that entices people away before fellowship and "procedural derm" which is perceived as bringing in more $ for less effort. Cosmetics is getting bigger as well, also cutting a piece of the pie. I know many derm dermpath-trained people and none of them have dermpath as the primary income source, in fact some of these dont even read their own slides anymore. Contrast this to dermpath trained pathologists, who by and large are at >50% income from dermpath with many at 100% (dangerously narrow IMO tho). If self referral laws were suddenly changed so that dermies HAD to send their own cases to someone else, then I would predict almost a total exodus of dermatologists from the field. Also client billing will likely be banned in the next ten years or so further decreasing interest, tho not as much as the other reasons I mentioned.
 
AndyMilonakis said:
That being said, I'm curious as to the percentage of the derm residents look at dermpath as a fellowship.
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Definitely a minority and in fact in my experience the better the residency program (Stanford, Harvard, UCSF), the less likely derm residents are too anything other than Mohs because of the numerous job offers they are flooded with. From the people Ive talked to, only radiologists and neurosurgeons get on the average more offers.
 
LADoc00 said:
Definitely a minority and in fact in my experience the better the residency program (Stanford, Harvard, UCSF), the less likely derm residents are too anything other than Mohs because of the numerous job offers they are flooded with. From the people Ive talked to, only radiologists and neurosurgeons get on the average more offers.
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Interesting thread. Someone mentioned that some dermpath progs are run thru the derm dept while other are run through path. Does anyone keep a list of which are which? Probably a good proxy for whether the program favors dermies or pathies. It's not always obvious off the program websites.
 
alabaster said:
Interesting thread. Someone mentioned that some dermpath progs are run thru the derm dept while other are run through path. Does anyone keep a list of which are which? Probably a good proxy for whether the program favors dermies or pathies. It's not always obvious off the program websites.
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Dermpath is physically located and adminstrated in dermatology:
Yale
UC Davis (no longer a fellowship prog)
UC Irvine " "

Dermpath is physically located and administrated by pathology:
Brigham/Mass Gen-HMS prog.
Stanford
UCLA

Feel free to add to the list
 
Dermpath is physically located and adminstrated in dermatology:
Yale
UC Davis (no longer a fellowship prog)
UC Irvine " "
NYU (I think)
U Penn
Chicago
Drexel
Mayo

Dermpath is physically located and administrated by pathology:
Brigham/Mass Gen-HMS prog.
Stanford
UCLA
Indiana
Arkansas
UVM
Umich
UVA
Colorado
MUSC
Wake
Pitt

Cleveland Clinic is strange because the director is a dermatologist but the administration is in Path.

Correct me if I am wrong about any of the above. My impressions are based sort of on who the directors are for the most part.
 
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Dermpath is physically located and adminstrated in dermatology:
Yale
UC Davis (no longer a fellowship prog)
UC Irvine " "
NYU (I think)
U Penn
Chicago
Drexel
Mayo

Dermpath is physically located and administrated by pathology:
Brigham/Mass Gen-HMS prog.
Stanford
UCLA
Indiana
Arkansas
UVM
Umich
UVA
Colorado
MUSC
Wake
Pitt
UCSF
 
yaah said:
Dermpath is physically located and adminstrated in dermatology:
Yale
UC Davis (no longer a fellowship prog)
UC Irvine " "
NYU (I think)
U Penn
Chicago
Drexel
Mayo

Dermpath is physically located and administrated by pathology:
Brigham/Mass Gen-HMS prog.
Stanford
UCLA
Indiana
Arkansas
UVM
Umich
UVA
Colorado
MUSC
Wake
Pitt

Cleveland Clinic is strange because the director is a dermatologist but the administration is in Path.

Correct me if I am wrong about any of the above. My impressions are based sort of on who the directors are for the most part.
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Dermpath at UVA is located in the pathology dept, but I believe the director (James Patterson) did a dermatology residency. Mark Wick is the other attending who signs out dermpath and he's definitely path trained.
 
CameronFrye said:
Dermpath at UVA is located in the pathology dept, but I believe the director (James Patterson) did a dermatology residency. Mark Wick is the other attending who signs out dermpath and he's definitely path trained.
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Hey, this is great info. Do people think that where the dept is housed and administrated is most important or the training of the dermpath attendings who select the fellows in terms of preference for derm or path applicants?
Or maybe this is all in vain and which residency you did matters not that much compared to how good a candidate you are.
 
I think it is fair to say that many dermpath-trained dermies go out and practice clinical derm. Even if they read their own slides they still send back a significant portion of their cases to their “mentor.” In this way training a dermie in dermpath makes business sense, you are ensuring a referral base. Training a pathologist in dermpath is training a potential competitor.
 
alabaster said:
Hey, this is great info. Do people think that where the dept is housed and administrated is most important or the training of the dermpath attendings who select the fellows in terms of preference for derm or path applicants?
Or maybe this is all in vain and which residency you did matters not that much compared to how good a candidate you are.
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I think the candidate matters more. At the derm-directed programs, they often have more dermatologists applying, or so I have heard, but it doesn't specifically mean anything more than that.
 
This is second hand info, but I've heard Univ of Florida in Gainesville takes almost exclusively path residents.

Anyone know which dermpath programs have the largest number of slots in comparison to the sizes of the derm and path residencies? i.e. greater opportunity to get a spot in dermpath at the same institution at which you did residency.

I heard Downstate has a lot of spots (Ackerman) in dermpath but that they almost never take their own path residents while they do take the local derm residents.

Also, I 've heard there are places that have dermpath programs but do not list them on any of the lists. For example, Univ of Miami and Albert Einstein have programs but you won't find them listed on FREIDA or the Amer Assoc of Dermpath list. Anyone know what is up with that?
 
Are those programs ACGME accredited? I get the sense there are some programs out there which say they are dermpath training programs yet are not "official." Which means, of course, that doing it is a complete waste of time if you plan to sit for dermpath boards (which requires doing an accredited dermpath fellowship). This is different from GI path, for example, which is not an ACGME accredited specialty - thus people who go through such a fellowship are not "officially" more qualified than any other trainee. They just have the extra training. Whereas dermpath, cytopath, hemepath fellows are accredited.
 
UCSFbound said:
Dermpath is physically located and adminstrated in dermatology:
Yale
UC Davis (no longer a fellowship prog)
UC Irvine " "
NYU (I think)
U Penn
Chicago
Drexel
Mayo

Dermpath is physically located and administrated by pathology:
Brigham/Mass Gen-HMS prog.
Stanford
UCLA
Indiana
Arkansas
UVM
Umich
UVA
Colorado
MUSC
Wake
Pitt
UCSF
Click to expand...

This is a useful and interesting thread for people interested in Dermpath fellowship. 👍
 
porokeratosis said:
This is a useful and interesting thread for people interested in Dermpath fellowship. 👍
Click to expand...

Yet, the best way to get the info is from someone in dermpath (like the person who signs it out at your program). Don't trust that too much, as I said, some of them are probably wrong, and some are integrated between the two departments, etc. Programs aren't going to shut out candidates from either field.
 
Montefiore (Albert Einstein) just got approved for 2 dermpath fellowships by ACGME.

As for derm/ path preference, it is true what people say about derm run programs preferring derm-- however, most programs (with more than one spot) like to have people from both backgrounds. For instance, Ackerman tries to take 50/50 each year and the Monte program is aiming for the same.
 
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Somebody will have to explain to me what the particular appeal of dermpath is. Why would one want to restrict himself to one tissue type? Money?

Judd
 
juddson said:
Somebody will have to explain to me what the particular appeal of dermpath is. Why would one want to restrict himself to one tissue type? Money?
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Money can certainly influence one's decision, although there are some folks out there who are just nuts about skin. It's rather difficult to define what makes a particular organ system more appealing to some folks. I have my preference, but I can't really name X, Y and Z things about it which excite me. I just find it intriguing for some nebulous reason.
 
juddson said:
Somebody will have to explain to me what the particular appeal of dermpath is. Why would one want to restrict himself to one tissue type? Money?

Judd
Click to expand...

A very old and wise pathologist told me when I was a mere lad that restricting one's self to a single organ system, even if at the time it was lucrative, was a mistake. Winds of change in healthcare blow hard and we are at the mercy of government Medicare rates to set reimbursement. EVEN if say we were a multinational corporation with the no.1 consumer electronic product like Ipod, it would be a mistake to have just that one stream of income. (and that is an independant market driven enterprise, we are not!)

Towelie has spoken, all should listen.
 
dermpathchick said:
Montefiore (Albert Einstein) just got approved for 2 dermpath fellowships by ACGME.

As for derm/ path preference, it is true what people say about derm run programs preferring derm-- however, most programs (with more than one spot) like to have people from both backgrounds. For instance, Ackerman tries to take 50/50 each year and the Monte program is aiming for the same.
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Huh, where the heck is that?? Never heard of it.
 
LADoc00 said:
A very old and wise pathologist told me when I was a mere lad that restricting one's self to a single organ system, even if at the time it was lucrative, was a mistake. Winds of change in healthcare blow hard and we are at the mercy of government Medicare rates to set reimbursement. EVEN if say we were a multinational corporation with the no.1 consumer electronic product like Ipod, it would be a mistake to have just that one stream of income. (and that is an independant market driven enterprise, we are not!)

Towelie has spoken, all should listen.
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Call me crazy, but I am confused as to why some people somehow gain credibility or "expertise" in certain areas just by doing a fellowship. I could do a couple more elective months in cytology and basically become proficient, yet I won't have done a fellowship. I am going to see enough GI here to become really good at it, but I probably won't do a fellowship in it. That's the whole point of residency training - otherwise why don't we just do fellowships from year one onward? Something like derm or probably heme basically requires a fellowship to become proficient.
 
yaah said:
Call me crazy, but I am confused as to why some people somehow gain credibility or "expertise" in certain areas just by doing a fellowship. I could do a couple more elective months in cytology and basically become proficient, yet I won't have done a fellowship. I am going to see enough GI here to become really good at it, but I probably won't do a fellowship in it. That's the whole point of residency training - otherwise why don't we just do fellowships from year one onward? Something like derm or probably heme basically requires a fellowship to become proficient.
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I went to an interview where one group put it the best: its all about MARKETING. They admitted that their in house dermatopathologist saw a mere 20% of the skins, but just the fact he was there, they saw more business from dermatologists. Funny, everything keeps going back to Towelie's concept of medicine as a business, service-oriented industry, something sooooo many people cant grasp, guess things like OChem and MCATs arent doing enough to really separate the wheat from the chaff...

PS- Finished sign outs late today: 9:48am, got caught in a meeting for AABB inspection. That means I have a mere 6 hours to screw off and read today...rough I know.
 
Wow-- Montefiore/ Albert Einstein Medical College is in the Bronx in NY. To those really into pathology, it is where Dr. Koss (father of cytology) is based
 
dermpathchick said:
Wow-- Montefiore/ Albert Einstein Medical College is in the Bronx in NY. To those really into pathology, it is where Dr. Koss (father of cytology) is based
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Although Ive heard of Leopold Koss' book, I have to admit Ive never seen a physical copy of it as out here in the West everyone uses DeMay(UChicago). If he is the father of cytology tho, I have to tell him, his baby is one ugly muthafooker! I want to put it up for adoption.
 
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I'm always amused at how every program has someone they consider to be "the father of" something or "the first" something or whatever. Like here, we have Dr Naylor who was one of the first cytologists (before Koss, even) and named many things, and Appelman, etc etc. I think AP Stout and Louis B Miller might qualify for people in this country, but not many others.
 
yaah said:
I'm always amused at how every program has someone they consider to be "the father of" something or "the first" something or whatever. Like here, we have Dr Naylor who was one of the first cytologists (before Koss, even) and named many things, and Appelman, etc etc. I think AP Stout and Louis B Miller might qualify for people in this country, but not many others.
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Yaah, when you got nothing else going for you, everyone has at least one father, somewhere...I think that is the appeal.
 
I am a Path resident at University of Florida and going into Dermpath. Our program is run by the Path Department, but has historically taken a 50/50 split among Derm vs Path. Here it is the individual canidate that matters.
 
Mantroe said:
Here it is the individual canidate that matters.
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That's generally true for every place. Even if a place takes more derm people over the years, that may not necessarily apply to each application cycle.

However, some would argue that a place that takes 50/50 derm/path people favors derm applicants, because there are probably more path applicants than derm applicants.
 
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