Dual residencies?

[xnfs93hy]

Is it possible to do two (three?) residencies at the same time? If this makes sense.

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[MossPoh]

Is it possible to do two (three?) residencies at the same time? If this makes sense.

There are a few programs around. It is generally seen as worthless or not that beneficial, except in very rare circumstances. IM/FM, IM/EM, FM/EM, IM/PEDs, Nuclear Medicine/Rads, PSYCH/IM....If you notice, most of these have a common theme. The most it does is extend your training and take another year or two of salary. It won't really do much for your practice usually.

 

[DrMattOglesby]

Is it possible to do two (three?) residencies at the same time? If this makes sense.

check out this link and you can find all sorts of different types of residencies.
or go to this site to see another list.

And to add to what MossPoh stated: It will be hard to maintain board certification in two specialties. It is just additional work all around.

 

[Bacchus]

Additionally, generally the ends don't justify the means. As a resident in a dual program I don't believe you make 2X residents pay nor will you get paid 2X working in a hospital when done with residency.

 

[Doodledog]

The combination of medicine and pediatrics, Med/Peds is a common combination and I believe is the most common dual residency. Each field would normally be 3 years and the combined residencies are 4 years leading to eligibility for board certification in both internal medicine and pediatrics. Med/peds training programs go "back and forth" over the 4 years of training between fields.

The pros and cons of this can be found extensively described in the combined residency forum. The majority of med/peds graduates will practice in both areas according to available recent survey data. Some will do specialty fellowships that cross-over between medicine and pediatrics with cardiology and endocrinology being popular for this.

Although it is true that it adds a year of training and the need to certify/recertify in both, I believe that most are happy with this combination. Of course, there are always some who entirely choose one of the two and therefore don't get the benefit of the dual residency.

 

[smq123]

It won't really do much for your practice usually.

This is kind of a gross generalization, to be honest.

Additionally, generally the ends don't justify the means. As a resident in a dual program I don't believe you make 2X residents pay nor will you get paid 2X working in a hospital when done with residency.

Well, it sort of depends on what your "ends" are. If your only goal is to get paid more, then I suppose that combined residencies are a bad idea. Heck, I'd even argue that medicine is a bad idea, in that case.

For instance....if you love "cradle-to-grave" medicine, but you don't like outpatient clinic (would rather do inpatient medicine), and you HATED OB....then Internal Medicine/Pediatrics is perfect for you. It's one more year than family medicine, but it gives you the extra inpatient exposure that you want, while avoiding the OB that you don't like. (Med/Peds also tends to give you more pediatrics exposure than you would get in family medicine. Plus, it gives you the option of subspecializing in something like cardiology, pulmonology, or infectious diseases, which family medicine does not.)

Or....if you know that you want to do pediatric psychiatry and work with patients with ADHD, bipolar disorder, etc. - then a combined peds/psych/child psych residency might be perfect for you. It's roughly the same length as doing a regular psych residency + a pediatric psych fellowship....but you save yourself the money and time required to do fellowship interviews.

Or....if you know that you will be practicing psychiatry in a rural area, it might make sense to do a combined psych/IM residency. That way, you will be better experienced and better equipped to deal with patients that have chronic medical issues on top of their psychiatric disorders.

So, it really depends on what your goals are. I think that combined residencies are very valuable, and definitely deserve a closer look.

 

[engineeredout]

The physician I shadowed did a double Neurology/IM residency and became board certified in both. The dual residency isn't proving him with any extra money over just neuro, and he only really practices as a neurologist now, he simply wanted to do IM as well and enjoyed it.

Do what you love.

 

[Terpskins99]

Some others I have seen...

IM/Dermatology
Neurology/Psychiatry
Pediatric Neurology is essentially another, though some consider this a residency (pediatrics) plus a fellowship (peds neuro)

Like others have mentioned, people typically go these routes for their own intellectual development. Practically speaking, everyone effectively ends up using just one specialty.

 

[Law2Doc]

Is it possible to do two (three?) residencies at the same time? If this makes sense.

It doesn't make sense to be asking about it in high school. You won't really know what you are interested in until late in med school. You may have a general idea, but most people change their mind at least once in med school, once they find that some fields aren't like what they thought, and some fields are better than they thought. The real question is, what is your goal. If you are trying to open lots of doors, I'd suggest that once you actually find what you like, you are best off concentrating going through that one door whole hog -- you will go further than by dabbling. And you won't be able to practice in multiple fields -- to get good at any field you have to focus in on it -- the days of a single doctor knowing multiple specialties is basically over. You can become a generalist or a specialist, but not really a multiple specialist -- bad idea. It's hard enough to stay abreast of one specialty, let alone two or three. If you are trying to postpone the time before you have to make a decision, I'd suggest that there are better ways to do this. And if you somehow think you will get paid more, it just doesn't work that way -- you will spend more time in residency, only to come out to about the same income as any one residency. There are a couple of fields where folks find this advantageous -- med/peds, EM/peds and EM/IM tend to be the most popular. but even in those, the physician ends up practicing in a single discipline at the end of the road. Don't spend too much time thinking about this until med school. These combined programs are exceptionally small because the demand is somewhat small, and the reason to do this over straight single specialties is fairly minimal IMHO.

 

[Law2Doc]

Some others I have seen...

IM/Dermatology
Neurology/Psychiatry
Pediatric Neurology is essentially another, though some consider this a residency (pediatrics) plus a fellowship (peds neuro)

Like others have mentioned, people typically go these routes for their own intellectual development. Practically speaking, everyone effectively ends up using just one specialty.

far more people do fellowships like this rather than two residencies. In nearly any specialty, there will be options to do a fellowship in the pediatric version of it, etc.

 

[Tired]

There is also the issue of how good your training actually is in combined programs.

I can't be the only one who wonders how 3 years of IM + 3 years of Peds = 4 years of Med/Peds.

I will also say that at my Med School's Med/Peds program, the residents were decidedly weak in Pediatrics.

 

[Terpskins99]

far more people do fellowships like this rather than two residencies. In nearly any specialty, there will be options to do a fellowship in the pediatric version of it, etc.

lol, no they don't. You picked the wrong example. Pediatric neurology is pretty unique, dude. It isn't a fellowship. You apply using the san francisco match site in conjunction with ERAS (which are the application programs by which 4th year medical students apply for residency).

This isn't like 3 years internal medicine residency followed by 3 years cardiology fellowship.

Its 2 years of pediatrics (instead of the normal 3) followed by 3 years of "ped neuro" (consisting of 1 year adult neuro + 2 years of formal pediatric neurology)... and you are eligible to write for both the general pediatrics and adult neurology boards (with special emphasis on child neurology). Its a dual residency.

 

[Law2Doc]

lol, no they don't. You picked the wrong example. Pediatric neurology is pretty unique, dude. It isn't a fellowship.

I'm confused -- I was agreeing with you, and you were the one who in your initial post termed it a fellowship, as do most programs, if you google it. As you stated, you can do a peds neuro fellowship, although the starting point is peds, not neuro.

See eg. http://www.choa.org/default.aspx?id=5755
http://www.ucihs.uci.edu/pediatrics/residency/neurology/neurology.html
http://www.seattlechildrens.org/hea...cation/gme/pediatric_neurology_fellowship.asp


So again, I was agreeing with you that such a "fellowship" exists, whether you want to call it a residency or not. But I also wasn't specifically talking about neuro. In most specialties you can do a fellowship in the peds version of it (ortho, rads, cards, etc).

It's still not something I would spend much time thinking about in high school though.

 

[Terpskins99]

Except it isn't a fellowship. Several sites incorrectly label it as such, for who knows what reason. To make the residents feel better about it, who knows. Yes, you can finish all three years of pediatrics before going into peds neuro but these days most applicants do not.

How many fellowships do you know of where you can shave a year off residency to start? Technically speaking, you don't even need to do two full years of peds, nor do you have to pass pediatrics boards to advance to pediatric neurology. You can do 1 year pediatrics and 1 year of internal medicine instead... essentially two years of internship. If you went that route, you wouldn't even be eligible to sit for peds or IM boards. You would only receive neurology with special emphasis on child neuro. So to recap, internship followed by several years of postgrad training and you are only required to sit for one set of boards. Call me crazy, but that kind of makes it a RESIDENCY.

Why are you arguing about something you clearly don't have any background in?

 

[Law2Doc]

Why are you arguing about something you clearly don't have any background in?

What arguing. You posted, I agreed with you, and you attacked me for it.

 

[KempDrumsalot]

It doesn't make sense to be asking about it in high school. You won't really know what you are interested in until late in med school. You may have a general idea, but most people change their mind at least once in med school, once they find that some fields aren't like what they thought, and some fields are better than they thought. The real question is, what is your goal. If you are trying to open lots of doors, I'd suggest that once you actually find what you like, you are best off concentrating going through that one door whole hog -- you will go further than by dabbling. And you won't be able to practice in multiple fields -- to get good at any field you have to focus in on it -- the days of a single doctor knowing multiple specialties is basically over. You can become a generalist or a specialist, but not really a multiple specialist -- bad idea. It's hard enough to stay abreast of one specialty, let alone two or three. If you are trying to postpone the time before you have to make a decision, I'd suggest that there are better ways to do this. And if you somehow think you will get paid more, it just doesn't work that way -- you will spend more time in residency, only to come out to about the same income as any one residency. There are a couple of fields where folks find this advantageous -- med/peds, EM/peds and EM/IM tend to be the most popular. but even in those, the physician ends up practicing in a single discipline at the end of the road. Don't spend too much time thinking about this until med school. These combined programs are exceptionally small because the demand is somewhat small, and the reason to do this over straight single specialties is fairly minimal IMHO.

I don't seem to quite understand you constant use of the phrase "It doesn't make sense to think about it in high school." Just because a majority of people may switch their speciality choice, or even go away from medicine completely does not mean it is absurd to consider your options early. To say this is, in my honest opinoin, either a sign of rudeness or ignorance. I am not saying anyone who makes this statement is either rude or stupid, as anyone who is consider a field in medicine is most likely a very bright individual, but to continuely try to degrate the hopes and thoughts of the youth exploring their options in the medical field is a little presumptious on your part. I personally know doctors who have kept the same track since their soph. year in high school, yet also know others who continually changed their ideas up until their junior year of medical school. While a majority may do the latter, this by no means represents the medical community as a whole.

Sorry if that turned into a little bit of a rant, but I noticed this on multiple topics.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful day!

 

[MilkmanAl]

Just because a majority of people may switch their speciality choice, or even go away from medicine completely does not mean it is absurd to consider your options early.

Yeah, actually it does. You have no basis for comparison between the specialties and don't really have any idea what goes into each (unless you've sat and talked with a parent in the field or something, and even then, you're unlikely to be able to grasp just how much work you're in for). It's basically the same thing as a young kid going, "Daddy, I wanna be an astronaut!"

 

[pianola]

Yeah, actually it does. You have no basis for comparison between the specialties and don't really have any idea what goes into each (unless you've sat and talked with a parent in the field or something, and even then, you're unlikely to be able to grasp just how much work you're in for). It's basically the same thing as a young kid going, "Daddy, I wanna be an astronaut!"

I have to respectfully disagree here. First of all, it's never too young to ask what the options are out there and to get a variety of opinions. I'd rather get a sense of what different specialties offer now rather than a few semesters too late. But more to the point, I think it's entirely ok to say "I want to do med-peds!" in high school so long as you're aware that your decision may (will probably?) change. Better to have an idea of what you might want than to suffer eternal indecision...(I'm just using med-peds as an example).

If you have absolutely no vision whatsoever as to what might ultimately make you happy, then you may have very little insight into yourself as a person.

When I hear someone say "I want to go into med-peds" I translate that into: "I know something about myself that would attract me to that specialty." Doesn't mean there's any harm done when the path isn't taken.

Besides, with no vision, you may end up taking 50 different paths until you find out what you want.

 

[Depakote]

I would say it's ok to think about a residency while in high school. The whole reason we made hSDN is so students can ask these sorts of questions.

Now I would say that one should absolutely be open to the possibility (and probability) that you won't wind up in the same field that you're exploring in HS.

Personally, I was thinking Ortho in HS... why? b/c I had shadowed an orthopedic surgeon. I had zero exposure to other fields.

Since then I've gone from being interested in Ortho to Internal Medicine to Hematology Oncology to being Very Undecided to leaning slightly towards Infectious Diseases.

As you get more exposure you'll find fields you like, fields you know you don't like and fields you want to find out more about. Keep asking questions, getting more exposure.

Older students, try to remember what it was like when you were in HS and had that first exposure to X field of medicine and were sure it was what you wanted to do. Please don't fault the HS students for asking as long as they're willing to keep an open mind.

 

[MilkmanAl]

I think we're actually agreeing. I was more talking about people who are trying to critically analyze that med peds residency now, halfway through high school, than those who are thinking "Hey, that was kind of neat."

 

[xnfs93hy]

Yeah, actually it does. You have no basis for comparison between the specialties and don't really have any idea what goes into each (unless you've sat and talked with a parent in the field or something, and even then, you're unlikely to be able to grasp just how much work you're in for). It's basically the same thing as a young kid going, "Daddy, I wanna be an astronaut!"

I agree. But doesn't that contradict what I just said? No. Depakote mentioned that this is why we have this forum, so I (and other high schoolers) can ask these questions. Some one said it is also never too early to consider residency options. Yeah it is, I am NOT worried about residency right now, I'll worry about that when and if I decide to go to medical school. I do agree that it is never to early to ask these kinds of questions. I could CARE LESS about my options. It is a moot point anyway, I'm not even in Med School!

All I know about residency is that most residents work long 70/80 hour work weeks. Some may even max out at 90/100. That, and they get paid CRAP but that is for obvious reasons (well, not obvious but you can probably Google why residents do not get paid very well).

 

[xnfs93hy]

I think we're actually agreeing. I was more talking about people who are trying to critically analyze that med peds residency now, halfway through high school, than those who are thinking "Hey, that was kind of neat."

I know you didn't mean me, AL.