1st year DO student interested in EM/IM with some questions

[KeikoTanaka]

Hey all, I'm a 1st year at an east coast DO school who is interested in EM/IM residencies but also interested in staying on the east coast (Mostly in the Northeast, NY and PA area). I see on EMRA that the only current AOA - and I presume DO Friendly program - is the one in Philadelphia. I just wanted to see what others thought about the competitiveness of the east coast programs. Also, if anyone knows anything about them personally, what are things I could do to stand out to them. What are the common USMLE scores to be competitive for such programs?

Do careers in EM/IM always lend itself to be solely academic? Is working part time as an emergency physician and hospitalist possible? For people that do this, if you do both jobs at the same hospital, can you technically be considered "Full-time" and receive benefits like health insurance through the hospital or what not? What is a realistic expectation of a job like this - do you work as a hospitalist one to two weeks a month then sprinkle in ED shifts throughout the off weeks from being a hospitalist?

If long term I wanted to do something like open up an outpatient clinic + urgent care, would having the dual certifications make something like this easier?

Sorry for the long post with lots of questions, I'm 3 weeks into school and just very passionate/excited about the future (but don't worry I studied a lot today so this is purely just day dreaming before I head to bed). Thanks.

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[cysticduct]

Some of the ACGME programs are also DO friendly. Take a look at the current residents of each program. In general, the competitiveness of EM/IM comes from there not being many spots. As far as I know, there hasn't been anything published on average scores. I think a rule of thumb is that its as competitive as the categorical EM or IM programs at the same institution, and maybe even a little more. To stand out - do well on boards + rotate/shadow at a few programs that you're interested in.

There are physicians that work in EM and as a hospitalist that are considered full time and receive benefits. The schedule really varies depending on the hospital.

No clue about opening up outpatient/urgent cares.

Feel free to PM with any questions

 

[Keladry]

A bunch of EM/IM programs have DOs, I think Christiana had a bunch as current residents from what I recall from interviews, feel like a lot of places had at least some DOs.

From what I've heard, if you want to split your time in EM & IM after residency, it's generally easiest to do that at hospitals that have the combined training, although certainly possible to work out a contract elsewhere - may require more negotiating, esp. w/r/t benefits, but I know people who've successfully done that.
Doesn't have to be solely academic but I feel like a lot of people who go into EM/IM want to be in academics anyhow, and it prepares you well for that.

 

[sylvanthus]

Im a DO and had no issues with interviews and such when I applied EM/IM except for Maryland. They apparently just wont take DOs regardless of board scores.

 

[wholeheartedly]

I'm not a doc, so not qualified to comment on most of your questions except to comfirm that you can do a job with combined EM/IM outside of academics.

I work in a rural critical access hospital and we have a staffing setup that would be very well suited to a dual boarded physician. It's a 24 bed hospital with 9 ED rooms (one of which is urgent care).

We're staffed by a rotating set of locums docs who are mostly FM trained. Those docs come for a week and cover the both ED and the hospital inpatients at the same time (no ICU at our facility, just medical and swing bed pts). They're on from about 7 am- 10 pm. The urgent care is staffed by a midlevel from 8 am-6pm. At 6 pm the midlevel goes and crashes and then takes over for the doc in the ED and inpatients overnight ( its variable how busy nights are and its possible to not have a patient the whole night). The doc is backup to the midlevel if needed during the night. Seems brutal, but they all seem to be fine with it.

While we're currently using locums FM docs, I'm pretty sure our execs would love to have an EM/IM provider.

TL;DR rural settings allow for interesting options as well