Hi guys, I'm a third year Canadian DO student who is interested in IM. As my ultimate goal is going back to Canada, I would need to do an extra year as a chief resident or apply for fellowships to meet their residency length requirement. I’m just wondering do most IM programs allow you to do an extra year as chief or at fellowships would be more feasible? I’m just worried that my visa requirement limits my fellowship opportunities (currently interested in cardiology). Any insights is much appreciated!
do most IM programs allow you to do an extra year as chief resident?
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It's probably 50/50. Some programs have 3rd year chiefs others have 4th year chiefs. Even if you decide that you just want to be a hospitalist there are plenty of 1 year fellowships that might help you meet your requirement either way.
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I would say that a majority of the "traditional" IM programs have a PGY4 year for chief..... typically chiefs are selected by the leadership
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In IM you generally don’t get to volunteer to be a chief...it’s typically a selection by leadership or peers to who will be asked to be chief, so would not go on the idea that being chief of something you are guaranteed to get.
There are 1 year fellowships that are not very competitive that are easy enough to get...geriatrics, palliative, obesity, etc that could fulfill your requirements though.
Do the fellowship. Chief resident is, for the most part, is a waste of time as far as experience goes, it might help add some flourish to you CV if you want to do some leadership stuff later or if you want to do a more competitive fellowship and your application is weak (even then, it is debatable how helpful it will be or not.
In a fellowship, your clinical skills are not going to be dulled to the same degree as they might on the 4th year of chief responsibilities (this is, after all, a glorified secretary). It can open some doors as well for you to have a palliative care fellowship, a geriatrics (population will only get older as time goes by), sleep medicine, etc.
Even people that wish to go into more competitive specialties might end up being better off with another fellowship than with a 4th year of chief. I have no first hand experience on this but I'd take a wild guess that two applicants that are otherwise similar in stats, the one with palliative 1year fellowship has better chances to get into cards than the one with 4th year chief. You can sell your experience dealing patients with terminal diseases (such as advanced cardiomyopathy) as an integration of your pre-existing skills (as a palliative expert, or even as a geriatrics) better than someone else can sell their amazing abilities to schedule 20 residents.
Well that's my opinion anyway, I am sure a bunch of people will get offended by my not so high opinion of chief years, I am sure there are specific cases where it makes sense (in fact one of my collagues did it and it was the best choice at the time in my opinion) but on average, I think it is a waste of time.
In a fellowship, your clinical skills are not going to be dulled to the same degree as they might on the 4th year of chief responsibilities (this is, after all, a glorified secretary). It can open some doors as well for you to have a palliative care fellowship, a geriatrics (population will only get older as time goes by), sleep medicine, etc.
Even people that wish to go into more competitive specialties might end up being better off with another fellowship than with a 4th year of chief. I have no first hand experience on this but I'd take a wild guess that two applicants that are otherwise similar in stats, the one with palliative 1year fellowship has better chances to get into cards than the one with 4th year chief. You can sell your experience dealing patients with terminal diseases (such as advanced cardiomyopathy) as an integration of your pre-existing skills (as a palliative expert, or even as a geriatrics) better than someone else can sell their amazing abilities to schedule 20 residents.
Well that's my opinion anyway, I am sure a bunch of people will get offended by my not so high opinion of chief years, I am sure there are specific cases where it makes sense (in fact one of my collagues did it and it was the best choice at the time in my opinion) but on average, I think it is a waste of time.
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If applying to more competitive fellowships like Heme/Onc , Cards, GI etc, a Chief resident year some times makes sense and may be seen as positive given there is a chance of you becoming a Chief Fellow as well. So the admin related stuff like scheduling etc helps there.
Just to fulfill a requirement, I would say do a 1 year fellowship, that like makes your CV more robust than a doing a Chief year.
PS: if you do palliative or geriatrics , you potentially can run a nursing home. For some reason it was a popular thing around where I trained.
Just to fulfill a requirement, I would say do a 1 year fellowship, that like makes your CV more robust than a doing a Chief year.
PS: if you do palliative or geriatrics , you potentially can run a nursing home. For some reason it was a popular thing around where I trained.
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