Anesthesiology & Palliative Medicine

[ecmalie]

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Hello,
I am nearing the end of my 3rd year of medical school. My interests in specialties have been all over the place, with my top three picks: Anesthesiology, surgery, and psychiatry. However, I had some exposure to palliative medicine and LOVED it. It looks like a whole variety of specialties can do a fellowship in Palliative.
Ideally I would love to split my time 50/50 between the specialty and palliative medicine.

I am looking for any anesthesiologists who have done a fellowship in palliative. If so, do you like the balance? When did you cross-train as a palliative provider? Would it be difficult early on in my career to cross train with palliative? Specifically, I am curious if it would still allow for enough OR time to hone in on skills. Any advice people have is appreciated 🙂

 

[doc05]

Not realistic. Tell me, who would hire you to do that?

 

[nimbus]

One of my partners did a palliative care fellowship after her anesthesia residency. However, she has never practiced palliative care, she has done 100% anesthesia after completing her fellowship.

 

[Psai]

One of my partners did a palliative care fellowship after her anesthesia residency. However, she has never practiced palliative care, she has done 100% anesthesia after completing her fellowship.

Fellowships = scam

 

[nimbus]

Fellowships = scam

She was biding time while her SO was finishing training.

 

[getdown]

She was biding time while her SO was finishing training.

Depending on her location, she might as well just do locums while waiting for a year. At least you start making money sooner and have the flexibility whenever the year is up. Wasting a year on a fellowship just to buy time is not a great idea and even worse when it comes to wasting it on a fellowship that adds zero value to her function as an Anesthesiologist.

To OP. Your value as an anesthesiologist is in being in the OR. The only way this would even be remotely conceivable is if you joined an academic setting and they have palliative care as well and your department is ok with you splitting time doing both. No private practice group will pay you to do palliative as it literally brings in no money. And even in academic settings where research productivity and OR time determines salary, they can't justify paying you your base salary for you to work 50% of the time in the OR. They'd be losing money. On a more practical point, Anesthesiology is something you have to do on a regular basis to be comfortable and keep your skills up.