Can anyone comment on NHSC scholarships for combined residency?

[illegallysmooth]

Hello!

I'm hoping someone here will be able to help. For a NHSC scholarship, you must do a primary care residency. After thoroughly searching, I have not found any information on whether or not it is possible to do a combined residency that includes at least one primary care compenent (i.e. FP/EM or Peds/EM). Obviously the recepient of the scholarship would still have to carry out the commitment to working in a primary care site post-residency. I even emailed the NHSC folks about this and have not received a response.

Thanks in advance if anyone has info on this.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[smq123]

Hello!

I'm hoping someone here will be able to help. For a NHSC scholarship, you must do a primary care residency. After thoroughly searching, I have not found any information on whether or not it is possible to do a combined residency that includes at least one primary care compenent (i.e. FP/EM or Peds/EM). Obviously the recepient of the scholarship would still have to carry out the commitment to working in a primary care site post-residency. I even emailed the NHSC folks about this and have not received a response.

Thanks in advance if anyone has info on this.

EM is not considered primary care by the NHSC, so no, I doubt that they would allow you to do an FP/EM, and almost certainly not a peds/EM residency.

They will allow you to do IM/peds, and you could probably make a case for IM/psych or FP/psych, since the NHSC considers IM, FP, peds, OB, and psych to all be "primary care." But I doubt that they'd let you do anything EM related.

 

[illegallysmooth]

EM is not considered primary care by the NHSC, so no, I doubt that they would allow you to do an FP/EM, and almost certainly not a peds/EM residency.

They will allow you to do IM/peds, and you could probably make a case for IM/psych or FP/psych, since the NHSC considers IM, FP, peds, OB, and psych to all be "primary care." But I doubt that they'd let you do anything EM related.

Well, they shouldn't let you do EM because you cannot fufill service obligations with an EM residency. You CAN fufill service obligations with a FP/EM residency, so long as you work in primary care afterward. Although I'm sure you're correct in that they wouldn't let me do the combined residency, I just think it's ridiculous and I keep getting more frustrated about it. If I can fufill the service obligation in exactly the same manner as a graduating FP resident, there's no reason not to include the combined residency as an option. Unless the real concern is that I will abandon primary care after fufilling the obligation, which is what I suspect.

 

[smq123]

I can understand that you'd be frustrated by it, although the NHSC *very* clearly spells out which residencies they do and do not accept in their applicant info book.

But the question that they would ask you is, why be EM boarded if you're planning on doing primary care?

 

[illegallysmooth]

I can understand that you'd be frustrated by it, although the NHSC *very* clearly spells out which residencies they do and do not accept in their applicant info book.

But the question that they would ask you is, why be EM boarded if you're planning on doing primary care?

I realize it's probably way too early to really be thinking about the details of my future practice, because I will probably change my mind, but at the moment I'm really interested in rural primary care with the option of doing some work in the local ED. I like options. I've always had this problem with narrowing down my interets.

 

[smq123]

I realize it's probably way too early to really be thinking about the details of my future practice, because I will probably change my mind, but at the moment I'm really interested in rural primary care with the option of doing some work in the local ED. I like options. I've always had this problem with narrowing down my interets.

Well, this brings a couple of thoughts to mind:

1) If you really want to practice medicine in the middle of nowhere, the rural ED may be glad just to get a licensed physician. They might not care at all if you're EM boarded. Even if you do peds, IM, or FP, you'll still have to spend some time rotating through the ER.

2) You could conceivably do IM/peds or just peds and then do a fellowship in peds EM. Peds is one of the few primary care specialties with fairly strong options to do EM later.

 

[hippiedoc13]

Unless the real concern is that I will abandon primary care after fufilling the obligation, which is what I suspect.

I bet this is exactly what the concern would be. It's the first thing that popped into my head...

 

[CTR]

According to http://nhsc.hrsa.gov/scholarship/pdf/defermentaib.pdf you can only choose from:

Family Practice 3 Years
General Internal Medicine 3 Years
General Pediatrics 3 Years
Obstetrics-Gynecology 4 Years
General Psychiatry 4 Years
Internal Medicine/Family Practice 4 Years
Internal Medicine/Pediatrics 4 Years