fellowship question !!!!!

[bigtimesmally]

---

Members don't see this ad.

I'm very confused. All osteopathic surgery programs, including ortho, have residents that get fellowships in allopathic institutions. However, most fellowship programs I've seen say that only ACGME general surgery trained residents can apply for those fellowships.

Are the doors to fellowships in surgical fields closed to DO's because the residencies aren't ACGME accredited? What's going on here?

 

[DO_Surgeon]

I'm very confused. All osteopathic surgery programs, including ortho, have residents that get fellowships in allopathic institutions. However, most fellowship programs I've seen say that only ACGME general surgery trained residents can apply for those fellowships.

Are the doors to fellowships in surgical fields closed to DO's because the residencies aren't ACGME accredited? What's going on here?

You can apply to ACGME programs and get accepted. The "problem" comes with board certification. Since you didnt do an ACGME general surgery residency/ortho, etc you can't sit for the allopathic boards, however I have spoken with the AOA a couple times about this issue and what you need to do is submit an "appeal" to the AOA for approval of your fellowship training and be granted BC through the AOA. Ultracompetitve fields: peds surgery, plastics, surg onc. would be very difficult to match as a DO so I would bet those doors would be nearly closed with an AOA GS residency. Vascular, CT, trauma, etc where there are so many open spots and not a great deal of interest would be easier to match into. I have contacted several ACGME vascular and CT programs about accepting DO's with AOA GS residency and nearly all indicate that there would be no problem.

 

[bigtimesmally]

wow, thanks. That's great info.

We can only hope that the future will be different for DOs in fellowships.