Acute Care (ACS) vs MIS fellowship

[doctor1984]

I am a gen surg resident and want to do acute care surgery but want to be very skilled in laparoscopy as well, so I am considering doing two fellowships: MIS and acute care surgery. Does anyone have any information on doing two fellowships?

In the case of MIS and ACS, is it preferable to do one before the other?

Is it appropriate to apply and interview for another fellowship when you're a fellow, or would I need to wait for my existing fellowship to end before applying for a new one? As a fellow, would I have time to pursue another fellowship?

My goal is to do MIS and ACS fellowships back to back in three years; I'd like to avoid having to take time off in between the two if possible.

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[Winged Scapula]

I am a gen surg resident and want to do acute care surgery but want to be very skilled in laparoscopy as well, so I am considering doing two fellowships: MIS and acute care surgery. Does anyone have any information on doing two fellowships?

In the case of MIS and ACS, is it preferable to do one before the other?

Is it appropriate to apply and interview for another fellowship when you're a fellow, or would I need to wait for my existing fellowship to end before applying for a new one? As a fellow, would I have time to pursue another fellowship?

My goal is to do MIS and ACS fellowships back to back in three years; I'd like to avoid having to take time off in between the two if possible.

I have no info about your first question (whether one is preferable over the other) but most people take time off during fellowship to interview for jobs so I'm not sure there's a difference in taking off time for second fellowship interviews.

 

[ACSurgeon]

I am a gen surg resident and want to do acute care surgery but want to be very skilled in laparoscopy as well, so I am considering doing two fellowships: MIS and acute care surgery. Does anyone have any information on doing two fellowships?

In the case of MIS and ACS, is it preferable to do one before the other?

Is it appropriate to apply and interview for another fellowship when you're a fellow, or would I need to wait for my existing fellowship to end before applying for a new one? As a fellow, would I have time to pursue another fellowship?

My goal is to do MIS and ACS fellowships back to back in three years; I'd like to avoid having to take time off in between the two if possible.

If you're a PGY1-3, and not committed to ACS, you could do a CC fellowship between your third and fourth years of residency, and still do 1 year of MIS after you graduate residency.

 

[vhawk]

why would you do a fellowship in acute care surgery? What skills would it provide you that you do not get in residency? Similarly, why are you interested in a MIS fellowship? I'm not asking these questions to be disparaging, but you should have specific goals in mind. I think "I want to be a skilled laparoscopic surgeon" is a pretty bad reason to do an MIS fellowship. What types of laparoscopic cases are you interested in doing in practice? If you want to do lap esophagectomies, or gastric bypass, or some specific skill/service you want to provide, that will go a long ways towards informing your choice about MIS fellowship. There are a ton of them, and they provide very disparate experiences, but I think "i want to be better at lap" is a weird reason, especially in 2014 when a huge chunk of your residency experience will be laparoscopic.

And ok maybe I am disparaging an ACS fellowship, but what exactly do you hope to or need to get out of doing something like that? It seems to me that these fellowships are really just a combo of a Surg Critical Care fellowship and some kind of "transition to practice" fellowship?

 

[vhawk]

Agree completely, and honestly I have a hard time picturing a surgery resident asking this question which makes me wonder if the OP is a pre-med or med student (esp to the bolded)

If I wanted to do acute care -> I'd do a trauma/CC fellowship at a strong trauma program.

If I wanted to do bariatrics -> I'd do an MIS fellowship. That's the only reason I would do MIS.

Agree 100% but then I'm doing a quasi-fake fellowship too so what do I know

 

[balaguru]

It's not so unreasonable. You could do both bariatrics and acute care and be out of network. Financially speaking there would be many pluses. Also division of time would not be difficult as routine bariatric patients have short hospital stays and acute care is usually done in shifts. We had an MIS guy in residency who took trauma call on occasion because he enjoyed it. He was quite the black cloud.

 

[filter07]

Some laparoscopy is done with a single port. Trauma is very good at single port surgery. Makes sense.

 

[ACSurgeon]

Some laparoscopy is done with a single port. Trauma is very good at single port surgery. Makes sense.

Correct. Most of trauma is SILS.

 

[Docgeorge]

Some laparoscopy is done with a single port. Trauma is very good at single port surgery. Makes sense.

I preform SITS (Single Incision Trauma Surgery). Usullay goes from xyphoid to pubis.