Board Certification Question

[prominence]

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If you complete your residency and then complete a fellowship afterwards, do you need to get board certified in both your specialty and subspecialty if you are soley interested in practicing just the subspecialty?

For example, suppose you complete an rehab residency, and then complete a pain management fellowship afterwards. If you soley interested in practicing in pain management, do you need to be board certified in rehab also?

does the fellowship program require u to be board certified in your specialty prior to beginning a fellowship program?

 

[AJM]

If you complete your residency and then complete a fellowship afterwards, do you need to get board certified in both your specialty and subspecialty if you are soley interested in practicing just the subspecialty?

For example, suppose you complete an rehab residency, and then complete a pain management fellowship afterwards. If you soley interested in practicing in pain management, do you need to be board certified in rehab also?

does the fellowship program require u to be board certified in your specialty prior to beginning a fellowship program?

I don't know if this is true for every specialty, but my fellowship program requires us to take the internal medicine boards to become boarded in IM. But in 10 years when recertification time comes around, it is my understanding that we can let our IM certification expire, so long as we keep up our subspecialty certification.

You don't have to already have taken the Boards in order to start fellowship, but you do have to be Board-Eligible, meaning that you have successfully completed an accredited residency, and are eligible to take your specialty Board exam. Usually the board exams aren't until late summer, so there will always be a little bit of a lag between when you've completed residency and when you become officially Board-certified.

 

[prominence]

any other thoughts?

 

[ramonaquimby]

any other thoughts?

i know for family med, if you specialize (geriatrics or sports med), you have to be certified in BOTH, even if you only practice one of hte specialities. but you didn't ask about family med, so i didn't really answer your question 😎

sorry 😕