Best Fellowships

[CameronFrye]

Yeah because sarcomas are so freaking common with some many good treatments. You might as well do a joint transplant pathology with soft tissue and then try to get a job in private practice

Wow. Your abrasiveness makes LADOC look like Mr. Rodgers.

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[LADoc00]

That's the thing...at many programs (especially the top-tier ones), it can be hard to bust into a fellowship from the outside since they can easily fill with internal candidates. One notable exception to this is Harvard Dermpath (and probably other dermpath fellowships out there) which takes applications from all over the country and doesn't give necessarily much preference to internal candidates from MGH, BWH, and BI. If you're interested in a fellowship at an outside program, I would inquire early but not expect to get a sure yes/no answer because they have to wait to see if they will fill with internal folks (who usually get first dibs).

Cyto fellowships, from what I hear, are popular. It's a boarded specialty, gives you a marketable skill, and your work hours are not likely to be too killer. So yeah, the one cyto position at Stanford is probably difficult to snag.

The director of cyto at Stanford recently passed away, unless someone can correct me, there are almost no BC cytologists on the Stanford faculty or at the most 1-2. UCSF definitely dominates that field in California, there is no contest there.

 

[LADoc00]

Anyone from Stanford know if that Autopsy path specialty ever fills? It doesn't sound like Forensics, so I don't think it is boarded.

What a waste of time in this day and age.

I believe (and once again feel free to correct me if my info is out of date) the Stanford autopsy fellowship is not a fellowship at all. It was started as a vehicle to transition AP-only residents who didnt/couldnt do the surg path fellowship into a research-based career. By giving them a year to get some data, they were in a better position to apply for a KO8 grant the following year. To my knowledge they do not take external people for that position, if you want to call it a position. From my interactions there, the "fellows" dont do more than 30-45min clinical work/week, the rest of the time is spent in the lab and other such activities.

Places like BWH, WashU and Hopkins have other more effective IMO methods of securing departmental funding for those seeking KO8/Howard Hughes type of grants and thus dont use this misleading designation.

 

[LADoc00]

Forensics....waste of time?!? Granted...some Medical Examiners start at salaries lower than Family Practice Physicians, but do you really see it as a waste of time....I personally see it as a necessary art/science that complements our justice system? From the list you posted, Forensics/Tox...etc. didn't even make it in the "Loser Fellowships" category... as you called it.

Now, if you meant it could be better incorporated into the AP curriculum certifying you in both in a shorter amount of time...good point, especially considering you are not making much more than a coroner (who may or may not be a physician) or a justice of the peace who under some states' laws can do the same job as you with far less education.

I think he meant the autopsy fellowship is waste of time not Forensic Pathology. I explained what is truly is in another post so I hope that solves it. As for Forensics, I have long said it bears only the most tangential relationship to pathology. It really needs to be its own 2-3 year training program. Why it is a pathology fellowship has always baffled me and I believe correcting this would not only make Forensics more popular but lead to better trained medical examiners as well.

 

[LADoc00]

Looking at medical relevance, rather than just USD, Soft Tissue and Dermpath would be a wicked combination.

Soft tissue/Derm is a relatively common combo and I agree would probably produce the best possible trained Dermatopathologist. The important thing would be to find a soft tissue-based program and not a bone-based one, to my knowledge only Emory and BWH really fit that bill.

 

[kittykat]

Cool....thanks for the info.