Disadvantage to being clinically focused in malignant heme/BMT at academic center?

[WanderingBlast]

I’m a first year attending with a malignant heme/BMT disease focus at an academic center. Right now I’m 50% clinical 40% research (10% admin/teaching). I may have just had a bad few weeks but I’m starting to feel like the research component of my work is burning me out. I don’t mind seeing patients outpatient, inpatient, or working hard clinically. I do seem to mind slogging through stats, worrying about manuscript deadlines, if I’m publishing enough, and if I might ever get a grant.

My program tells me if I wanted to change to be a full time clinician (with the same disease focus) I could. This would look like 2.5-3 days of clinic. Plus 8-12 inpatient weeks. My goals as an early career physician are to gain clinical experience in malignant heme and CAR-T/BMT in my first few years out, especially since I elected not to do a BMT fellowship. If I ever changed jobs, I would probably want to change to something hybrid or community based, but I’m not sure how likely I’d be to find a job looking for or willing to hire someone with a prior heme/BMT/cell therapy focus. If I went to another academic center (which would allow me to have a disease focus) I’d prefer not to have to do research but I’m not sure how common it is to find academic jobs that are looking for clinical-track physicians.

1) Given my goals, would I be at a disadvantage if I dropped research? I presume hybrid/community places won’t care and maybe it would even be an asset since I’d be more clinically busy. But would I shut the door on clinically-focused academic jobs if I did that? Do clinical-track academic jobs even exist at other places?

2) I really enjoy all of hematology (benign, malignant, transplant, etc). Anyone think we might be seeing more heme-focused community/hybrid jobs in the future as the population ages, autos and CAR-T moves outpatient, etc?

3) Would I be at a big disadvantage if I switched out of academia into a general oncology job in <5 years? I’m onc and heme boarded. Given how much I’m disliking research I’m thinking maybe I should have considered general community positions more seriously. If I left my current job for a general community position it would be because I wanted to ensure I had good job opportunities for the future (meaning opportunities where I don’t have to be doing research).

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[whoknows2012]

I’m a first year attending with a malignant heme/BMT disease focus at an academic center. Right now I’m 50% clinical 40% research (10% admin/teaching). I may have just had a bad few weeks but I’m starting to feel like the research component of my work is burning me out. I don’t mind seeing patients outpatient, inpatient, or working hard clinically. I do seem to mind slogging through stats, worrying about manuscript deadlines, if I’m publishing enough, and if I might ever get a grant.

My program tells me if I wanted to change to be a full time clinician (with the same disease focus) I could. This would look like 2.5-3 days of clinic. Plus 8-12 inpatient weeks. My goals as an early career physician are to gain clinical experience in malignant heme and CAR-T/BMT in my first few years out, especially since I elected not to do a BMT fellowship. If I ever changed jobs, I would probably want to change to something hybrid or community based, but I’m not sure how likely I’d be to find a job looking for or willing to hire someone with a prior heme/BMT/cell therapy focus. If I went to another academic center (which would allow me to have a disease focus) I’d prefer not to have to do research but I’m not sure how common it is to find academic jobs that are looking for clinical-track physicians.

1) Given my goals, would I be at a disadvantage if I dropped research? I presume hybrid/community places won’t care and maybe it would even be an asset since I’d be more clinically busy. But would I shut the door on clinically-focused academic jobs if I did that? Do clinical-track academic jobs even exist at other places?

2) I really enjoy all of hematology (benign, malignant, transplant, etc). Anyone think we might be seeing more heme-focused community/hybrid jobs in the future as the population ages, autos and CAR-T moves outpatient, etc?

3) Would I be at a big disadvantage if I switched out of academia into a general oncology job in <5 years? I’m onc and heme boarded. Given how much I’m disliking research I’m thinking maybe I should have considered general community positions more seriously. If I left my current job for a general community position it would be because I wanted to ensure I had good job opportunities for the future (meaning opportunities where I don’t have to be doing research).

Do what you enjoy life is too short and training to get where you are too long to not love what you’re doing. Based on what you describe switch to the full clinical and see how you like it. Maybe even ask if they’d let you trial it for a few months. I do full clinical leukemia with no research requirement (though I do a fair amount of clinical research on my own time as well as mentorship and teaching) and feel similarly to how you’re feeling at the moment. I’m 4 years in.

I don’t think this would harm your chances for anything else you may decide to do.

 

[randomhemoncpd]

Would the “full time” clinical option be 80:20? If so that’s not a bad trade off. I honestly think you need a few years under your belt to feel truly comfortable with allo so if you like the clinical work I’d try to stick it out for at bit longer. If you send me a DM I’m happy to talk it over privately as it echoes some of the decision making i had to deal with early in my career.

 

[WanderingBlast]

Full time clinical would be no research expectations at all other than helping with trial enrollment. I could also do options like 80:20 clinical:research/admin though. I’m fortunate that the needs of my institution seem flexible.

Thanks for the advice @whoknows2012 . It’s reassuring to hear your perspective. And to @randomhemoncpd , thank you as well. I’ll message you shortly.