Academic Residency to Community Fellowship

[deleted1145155]

Hello! Current MS1; my long term plan is to be a community physician. However, my general question is concerning the title.

I was speaking to an attending about this and she told me that going to an academic residency will make it harder for me to go to a community fellowship. However she said that going to an academic residency is what I should aim for. I'm just slightly confused.... I thought it would be possible to land a community fellowship from an academic residency right?

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[greatnt249]

Hello! Current MS1; my long term plan is to be a community physician. However, my general question is concerning the title.

I was speaking to an attending about this and she told me that going to an academic residency will make it harder for me to go to a community fellowship. However she said that going to an academic residency is what I should aim for. I'm just slightly confused.... I thought it would be possible to land a community fellowship from an academic residency right?

Not knowing the full conversation that you had about this, but perhaps what the attending was getting at is if you come from an academic powerhouse for residency, community fellowship programs might question your motivations for wanting to come to their fellowship (e.g. "are they just applying here as a safety net or do they actually want to come here").

 

[deleted1145155]

if you come from an academic powerhouse for residency, community fellowship programs might question your motivations for wanting to come to their fellowship

Thanks for the reply. Your right that's basically the gist of the conversation. I personally dread research. I don't think I would be happy at a research powerhouse residency. When I said that I honestly felt like she was offended because my med school is a research powerhouse, and she does contribute a lot.

How do I set up myself to match in a community fellowship then?

(Looking too far ahead here but curious): She told me that if I go to a research heavy fellowship, PP might not hire me. Is that also true?

 

[greatnt249]

Thanks for the reply. Your right that's basically the gist of the conversation. I personally dread research. I don't think I would be happy at a research powerhouse residency. When I said that I honestly felt like she was offended because my med school is a research powerhouse, and she does contribute a lot.

How do I set up myself to match in a community fellowship then?

(Looking too far ahead here but curious): She told me that if I go to a research heavy fellowship, PP might not hire me. Is that also true?

I'm not intimately involved with our program's fellowship matching process, but your problem seems like a "good" problem to have in the sense of having options available, whereas other applicants from not-so-strong or well-known programs might be struggling to stick out in a sea of candidates. You can probably stave off a lot of the issues you described in the OP by simply expressing a sincere, genuine interest in wanting to go into a community program and discussing as much at any interview you might get.

Anyone else with more intimate involvement in program recruitment can feel free to chime in with whether what I said is actually good advice, but the above is just my point of view.

 

[NotAProgDirector]

You're putting the cart before the horse. You're an M1. Your interests may change over time. Right now, just do the best you can in medical school. You haven't mentioned what field you might want to be in -- some require decent research to be competitive. You can still match to a community fellowship site from an academic residency -- you would need to demonstrate true interest rather than "backup" mentality. And whomever told you that you can't go to PP from an academic fellowship is crazy.

 

[mistafab]

Agree with @NotAProgDirector

You’re so far away from that now that it is useless. Do well in school and set yourself up to be successful for the residency you want. Fellowships are very field dependent anyway, it may not even matter. You also might not even do a fellowship.

 

[Gastrapathy]

I encounter lots of research fellows who discover that they hate research and want to do clinical medicine during fellowship. They all get jobs.

 

[j4pac]

I’d have more concern about non-academic residency to academic fellowship than the other way around. Either way…I wouldn’t sweat it. People follow all kinds of paths to reach their destination.

 

[gutonc]

I’d have more concern about non-academic residency to academic fellowship than the other way around. Either way…I wouldn’t sweat it. People follow all kinds of paths to reach their destination.

Absolutely. And remember that every individual only has their own experience to draw on. Sure, we all have stories about other people, but we can only be 100% certain about our own. So when you ask a physician-scientist at a Top 10 research institution about a path that doesn't lead to being a physician-scientist at a Top 10 research institution, you should take the advice they give with a grain of salt.