General Questions about Fellowship.

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DrVanNostran

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How do we find out what programs are more geared in training fellows for clinical practice rather than an academic career? Or does it not matter where you go?

It seems that most programs have 18 months of "clinical" time and 18 months of "research." Is this a standard across most programs? Why is there so much time dedicated to research; or is this combined research/clinical time?

If my eventual goal is to work at a community hospital, should I consider community programs more than a larger academic institution?

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How do we find out what programs are more geared in training fellows for clinical practice rather than an academic career? Or does it not matter where you go?

Community programs (and lightweight academic places) are probably "better" for training community docs but, quite honestly, if you avoid the great big cancer centers (MSKCC, MDACC, FHCRC, etc.) you'll be fine. And even if you do wind up at one of those places, it's not like 100% of their graduates go into academics. Find a place you like (after you finish the IM training you haven't even started yet) and you'll be fine.

It seems that most programs have 18 months of “clinical” time and 18 months of “research.” Is this a standard across most programs? Why is there so much time dedicated to research; or is this combined research/clinical time?

I would direct you here for the answer to your question. The short answer is: "those are the rules."

Also, "research" is a very vague word and can be construed very differently from one person/place to another. It doesn't necessarily mean sitting at a lab bench with a pipet in your hand (although that is what drives new diagnostics and therapeutics). There's this crazy thing you may have heard of called "clinical research" which involves, well, clinic. And you can even combine the two of them into this amazing mish-mash known as translational research (all that bench-to-bedside bullsh** that funders wet themselves over but nobody actually does).

If my eventual goal is to work at a community hospital, should I consider community programs more than a larger academic institution?

See above. Go where you like and the rest will fall into place.

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Gutonc, your point of view about " translational research" is interesting, can you please clarify? What do you mean by " actually no one does it" and what are the reasons for this trend?
 
Gutonc, your point of view about " translational research" is interesting, can you please clarify? What do you mean by " actually no one does it" and what are the reasons for this trend?

Nobody actually does it because nobody can really define what they mean by "translational research." That doesn't mean there isn't plenty of translational research happening but the definition is so vague that just about anything that includes human tissue/cells can be defined as such. I can pretty much call any of the basic bench research I do "translational" because it involves archival human tissue samples and cell cultures. Likewise, if you do a clinical trial and include a single biochemical analysis in it, well, that's got some bench and bedside in it too, so it must be translational.

The reason for the trend is your basic herd mentality. Somebody (ACS, NCI, whatever...it doesn't really matter who) said that translational research was critical. So now everybody (funders and grant applicants) thinks translational research is critical. Only, nobody can really tell you what they mean by that (see above).

Note that I'm not digging on the importance of patient/disease directed basic research and the associated diagnostic/drug development. I'm mostly mocking the lemming-like philosophy of most researchers and funding organizations.
 
Who covers the medical management of brain neoplasms? Can Heme-onc do it, or does it have to go through neurology?


BTW-thanks for the reply.
 
Who covers the medical management of brain neoplasms? Can Heme-onc do it, or does it have to go through neurology?


BTW-thanks for the reply.

I've actually never met a neurologist who wanted anything to do with cancer. Not that they don't exist, but they're rare.

Med onc and some of the Onc neurosurgeons manage them.
 
Nice, thanks. You may have saved me 3-4 years of hating on EEGs :)
 
I've actually never met a neurologist who wanted anything to do with cancer. Not that they don't exist, but they're rare.

Med onc and some of the Onc neurosurgeons manage them.


I met a neuro-oncologist who did neurology followed by neuro-oncology followed by neuro-radiology fellowship who now give lecture everywhere and give temdur+/-avastin to all his brain tumer pts along with some help of gamma-knife and neurosurgeries/biopsies by another doctor in same group who is a trained neurosurgeon and radiation oncologist
 
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