doing Surgery Residency After Completing IM residency

[overlordm6]

Hey Everyone
i Am an img.i am intrested In Doing General Surgery Residency. i Heard That Its Difficult For An Img To Get Surgery...So I'm Planning To Do InternalMedicine Residen, Complete Itt And Then Switch To Surgery With That Clinical Experience..

So, Is This a Feasible Idea?

i Would Like To Know The Implications It Has On My visa,Stipend(Funding) n Also The Application Process While Applying For Surgery

Thanx In Advance!!!!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Winged Scapula]

Hey Everyone
i Am an img.i am intrested In Doing General Surgery Residency. i Heard That Its Difficult For An Img To Get Surgery...So I'm Planning To Do InternalMedicine Residen, Complete Itt And Then Switch To Surgery With That Clinical Experience..

So, Is This a Feasible Idea?

Feasible? Yes.

Practical and probable? Most likely not.

i Would Like To Know The Implications It Has On My visa,...

That would depend on what type of visa you would be here on and whether or not you have a government mandated return to your country of origin after your IM residency.

...

Stipend(Funding)

As an IM resident you are eligible for 3 years of full funding. Any training after that will be at reduced funding, which means that programs might not be interested in taking you when they could have someone just as qualified with full funding.

... n Also The Application Process While Applying For Surgery

Thanx In Advance!!!!

If you want to be a surgeon, then apply for a surgical residency. Doing an IM residency will *not* increase your chances of matching into surgery, it will actually decrease it due to the afore-mentioned issues with funding as well as concerns about the difficulty of going from Chief resident/Attending back to an intern in terms of training and hierarchy.

The application process is the same except that would be applying as an Independent Candidate if you did so during an IM residency and you would have to be able to find time to leave residency training for surgery interviews (can be difficult).

 

[overlordm6]

Feasible? Yes.

Practical and probable? Most likely not.



That would depend on what type of visa you would be here on and whether or not you have a government mandated return to your country of origin after your IM residency.

...

As an IM resident you are eligible for 3 years of full funding. Any training after that will be at reduced funding, which means that programs might not be interested in taking you when they could have someone just as qualified with full funding.



If you want to be a surgeon, then apply for a surgical residency. Doing an IM residency will *not* increase your chances of matching into surgery, it will actually decrease it due to the afore-mentioned issues with funding as well as concerns about the difficulty of going from Chief resident/Attending back to an intern in terms of training and hierarchy.

The application process is the same except that would be applying as an Independent Candidate if you did so during an IM residency and you would have to be able to find time to leave residency training for surgery interviews (can be difficult).

thanx a lot, for such a detailed reply mate! but i dint understand this part

As an IM resident you are eligible for 3 years of full funding. Any training after that will be at reduced funding, which means that programs might not be interested in taking you when they could have someone just as qualified with full funding.

con you explain this in a detailed way!! thanx again!
in between sorry for late response !!

 

[Winged Scapula]

thanx a lot, for such a detailed reply mate! but i dint understand this part

con you explain this in a detailed way!! thanx again!
in between sorry for late response !!

In the United States, resident physicians are paid a salary which is funded by the US government. The amount of funding is set based on the residency specialty you match into first. There is no provision in the system for doing multiple residencies at full funding.

Thus, since Internal Medicine is a 3 year residency, you will get 3 years of full funding. However, if you do Internal Medicine *first* followed by general surgery, you will only be fully funded for the 3 years of IM residency, and the general surgery program will not receive full funding from the government to pay for your 5 years of training.

Therefore, General Surgery programs will be less likely to offer positions to candidates without full funding.

 

[overlordm6]

got it !! i dint knew that There is no provision in the system for doing multiple residencies at full funding.
so i got this idea..
thnx once again mate!!

 

[ACSurgeon]

got it !! i dint knew that There is no provision in the system for doing multiple residencies at full funding.
so i got this idea..
thnx once again mate!!

While there is no provision to do two residencies, it does happen occasionally. I knew a few anesthesia residents/attendings who had done a previous residency (in full or part). It will be harder for someone with visa issues. Also, surgical residencies are hard for IMG's to get, and having a funding issue will make it more difficult.

 

[ESU_MD]

I dont think its a bad strategy.

Gets your foot in the door
IF people like you, they will be more likely to help you AND want to keep you around. Hang out with surgeons and take good care of their patients, let them know you want to be a surgeon. It all helps
Medicine training of course is always valuable
You can moonlite through surgical residency, provided your visa allows

 

[human being]

Hey Everyone
i Am an img.i am intrested In Doing General Surgery Residency. i Heard That Its Difficult For An Img To Get Surgery...So I'm Planning To Do InternalMedicine Residen, Complete Itt And Then Switch To Surgery With That Clinical Experience..

So, Is This a Feasible Idea?

i Would Like To Know The Implications It Has On My visa,Stipend(Funding) n Also The Application Process While Applying For Surgery

Thanx In Advance!!!!

I was thinking of using the same strategy to get into surgery.

 

[Buzz Me]

Personally I think it's a bad idea. Some surgery programs will see you as harder to train, since (1) you've been through a diametrically opposed residency, (2) you'll be that many years out from med school, and (3) it's a tough transition to go from chief resident/attending back to intern (as WS pointed out earlier).

This is all assuming you can even get funding for another 5+ years.

 

[nancysinatra]

At the risk of becoming the biggest laughingstock ever in the history of SDN, I have a question. Could a person who has done a psych residency ever get into a surgery residency later on? What about trying to scramble into a surgery prelim year at a program where those slots go unfilled? Would that be a possible back door to get in?

 

[LucidSplash]

At the risk of becoming the biggest laughingstock ever in the history of SDN, I have a question. Could a person who has done a psych residency ever get into a surgery residency later on? What about trying to scramble into a surgery prelim year at a program where those slots go unfilled? Would that be a possible back door to get in?

Are you trying to do a study on us by embedding yourself?

 

[nancysinatra]

Are you trying to do a study on us by embedding yourself?

If only! No I am just looking to escape the analysts!

I am a fourth year psych resident, and I kid you not, today my classmates went around the room and some of them boasted about how they had "developed identities as psychiatrists." And then they talked about how they had changed their personal demeanors to reflect this identity. What this means is that they now no longer have the ability to talk or act like normal human beings. I have felt for quite awhile that I can only take so much of this.

There are other reasons I'm interested in surgery as well, though. It was my favorite rotation in med school.

 

[Winged Scapula]

At the risk of becoming the biggest laughingstock ever in the history of SDN, I have a question. Could a person who has done a psych residency ever get into a surgery residency later on?

Sure. Although its more often the other way around (surg --> psych), there is no reason that you couldn't get one (outside of the usual - funding issues, any application deficiencies). There's no wholesale rules against it.

What about trying to scramble into a surgery prelim year at a program where those slots go unfilled? Would that be a possible back door to get in?

Possibly. But if you're doing to do it, you should try for Categorical. Prelim GS is a special kind of hell - a year long audition interview. The ones left over in the Scramble/SOAP are often not worth having IMHO.

 

[nancysinatra]

Sure. Although its more often the other way around (surg --> psych), there is no reason that you couldn't get one (outside of the usual - funding issues, any application deficiencies). There's no wholesale rules against it.



Possibly. But if you're doing to do it, you should try for Categorical. Prelim GS is a special kind of hell - a year long audition interview. The ones left over in the Scramble/SOAP are often not worth having IMHO.

Thank you so much! That is really good information to know. It would be a couple years before I might consider this plan. I want to pay some loans off first. But after that, who knows?

 

[Winged Scapula]

Thank you so much! That is really good information to know. It would be a couple years before I might consider this plan. I want to pay some loans off first. But after that, who knows?

Keep us in the loop!

 

[nancysinatra]

Keep us in the loop!

Thanks--I will, when/if the time comes!

 

[Buzz Me]

There are other reasons I'm interested in surgery as well, though. It was my favorite rotation in med school.

Out of curiosity, why'd you pick Psych then?

 

[nancysinatra]

Out of curiosity, why'd you pick Psych then?

Well, it was a hard choice. I liked both psych and surgery in med school. I did a trauma surgery elective and loved that, and thought burns were interesting too. But people kept telling me that the same personality types go into both. So I had this idea that either choice would be equally good. The advantage of psych (or so I thought) was that most of the attendings and residents I met seemed happy and well rounded. (I think that's generally true of people in psych.) They had hobbies and you could hold a conversation with them. So that made the work seem more interesting. I also had the luxury of rotating on a couple really unique, specialized psych units which I know now really isn't the norm. Meanwhile I met some surgery (and IM) residents who just seemed miserable. For psych we rotated at a swanky private hospital, but for surgery and IM we were sent out to community hospitals where there were lots of overworked IMG residents.

Plus there were some serious gunners in my med school, and they mostly went into ortho and plastics, and that tainted my view of surgical fields in general. So a lot of my choice had to do with personality aspects of the jobs, as opposed to the actual work involved.

Now at the psych program I'm at for residency, it's much more bland. The things I liked about psych in med school are not as observable in my residency's psych department. We have a different patient population and a different focus. So now I'm realizing that what most psychiatrists do day in and day out doesn't interest me as much as I thought it would. I get bored hearing about people's problems and mood changes. There's hardly any cures in psychiatry, and there's very little problem solving. The "emergencies" are not really emergencies. What psych is all about is listening to people and I must admit I find a lot of people's problems boring!

There are some things I like in psych and I am going to see how it goes for a year or so after residency. I would be reluctant to do a 2nd residency because I'm older than most residents anyway and want to get on with my life. But I wouldn't rule it out. I'm not sure it would be surgery either, because of the length. I'm just going to see.

 

[DrVanNostran]

Out of curiosity. Say, an IM or Family resident pursues a surgical residency. How much funding does the home program lose? And more importantly, how much potential revenue do they lose?

 

[Danbo1957]

Out of curiosity. Say, an IM or Family resident pursues a surgical residency. How much funding does the home program lose? And more importantly, how much potential revenue do they lose?

Second residencies rarely happen today due to funding reasons noted above. Back in the 1980's we did have IM/FP enter into GS residencies often-- those doctors were considered really valuable. Now, occasionally you see former surgeons going into psych, but they self-fund their residency.

Today, residencies cost around $100K per PGY year, per resident; CMS picks up most of that bill, but not all of it. If you really want do a second residency, you will have to find alternative funding that covers the complete cost of attendance (there's a lot involved). Also, most likely, you will do that second residency at a smaller community program that has to fund unwanted slots (that have to be filled).