Endocrine surgery fellowship

[osumc2014]

I really enjoy thyroid, parathyroid and adrenal surgeries, I was wondering if anyone had any information on endocrine fellowships after gen surg? How many programs there are, how competitive they are, and necessary to do those surgeries?

Thanks

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[ESU_MD]

I heard of these fellowships and likely it is always good to get extra training.

However, getting a job just doing thyroids, paras and adrenals might be tough. Lots of other people in line since for most general surgeons these cases are the grand prize. Maybe academics? But prepared to do alot of other gen surg til your referrals solidify or your senior partner retires.

Cant recall seeing too many recruiting ads for endocrine surgeon, maybe someone with more time than me can find and post an example.

Who doesnt like doing a nice thyroid? Technically it gives at least a mild challenge, cool anatomy. Very little complex postop care. One of the few perfect cases.

 

[Pir8DeacDoc]

Have a friend currently doing an endocrine fellowship at Michigan. Not sure what her post fellowship plans are but I imagine something in academics.

 

[Dr.LeoSpaceman]

"Endocrine only" practices do exist. Herb Chen at Wisconsin is an example. I know there are 1 or 2 surgeons at NYU that do thyroids/paras predominantly, and there is a group at UPMC that does only thyroids, paras and adrenals. I also believe there is a similar group at Loyola, but I'm not sure. I imagine there are others a well, but I would expect they are mostly concentrated at academic institutions.

For info on programs, you can look to the American Association of Endocrine Surgeons. The other way in would be a surgical oncology fellowship, but that's going to be more competitive. And while you aren't going to need fellowship training to do those cases, I imagine any practice looking specifically for an endocrine surgeon is going to want someone fellowship trained. And even if you were going to go out and develop your own niche, it's going to be easier to sell it to referring physicians if you can point to advanced training.

Suffice to say, that unless you are in the right place at the right time where one of these practices is hiring, you can expect to do a fair amount of general surgery until you develop your own referral base. And even then you may still be expected to remain in the call pool for general surgery.