Radiology is going to follow pathology when it comes to fellowships...not a good idea.
I would like to know where these rural jobs are...I would rather not do a fellowship.
Change "hired out of residency" to "hired out of training"...thats funny. Pass the Koolaid. Lets be honest...who hires residents...almost no one (except rural areas i guess, would like to know specifics).
What? You haven't heard of those "rural" jobs hiring people right out of training? During residency, I was not able to keep the recruiters away!
That myth ranks right up there with the "many old pathologists getting ready to retire" line that has been out there for 30+ years.
Funny how posters want to take another medical profession that is going the way of a trainwreck and somehow justify pathology's course for that.
Bottom line: A fellowship is completely unnecessary if one works hard and reads (and has a certain amount of skill) in residency. In fact, it almost hurts you as your skills diminish somewhat in other areas.
Another myth starting to be perpetuated is that if you inform medical students of the situation, the good ones will leave the profession and that we will be left with the remnants. This is GOOD FOR US PEOPLE!!! The following is why:
1. Competition -- if you are competing against a reference lab who works on the cheap with unethical practices and they can only hire suboptimal pathologists -- they become unreliable and will lose their business back to you.
2. Residency -- many residency programs will NOT take suboptimal residents and thus will NOT fill. I know this for a FACT. Other residencies that do take them will be less inclined to expand and deal with more of them as they are a headache. Having great residents is incentive to expand in my view.
3. Other specialties -- why would you rather have a great candidate as a competing pathologist as opposed to a clinician who is great to work with and also giving you business?
Anyway, I say if you are a medical student and a bright one, you should see warning signs here -- I missed them and although I love pathology and have a good job -- I will be dealing with the consequences of OVERSUPPLY throughout my career -- of which I have outlined in numerous threads. You will have to make adjustments accordingly which I have done to minimize their impact. For some, those adjustments may be more painful than others. Fortunately for me, some of those adjustments are preferable (a less than ideal job location for most people -- I personally like to live in a rural, remote, conservative area and can't stand being around a bunch of leftist utopians).