GIM Fellowships

[flabs]

Does anybody have any experience or thoughts on GIM/Academic Hospitalist Fellowships? I would like to stay in academia, and along with clinical duties, perform clinically-based research. I'd like to have some more formal education in these methods and feel this would be a good chance to get this sort of education.

A few programs I'm interested in: UCSF, OHSU, UCLA, Mayo, Hopkins. (I have a west coast bias and most interested in the first two, if anyone has any thoughts)

Thanks

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[DIce3]

My bias: If you plan to practice academic general medicine, a GIM fellowship is important. If you plan to practice in the private world, do not even think about doing a GIM/hospitalist fellowship. The more important question is why do you want to do academic general internal medicine as opposed to community practice? Here lies the real answer to your question.

 

[nope80]

bump

 

[zeloc]

bump

As Dice3 points out, the most important thing is the motivation.

I used to be skeptical of GIM fellowships but now knowing persons who have done it and are doing it, and working with some of this individuals, as well as doing additional post-residency training, has changed my mind. I would further define what exactly you want to do and determine the best pathway for you to accomplish that.

Eg, would you be best served by a GIM fellowship or maybe it would make more sense to do an MPH focusing on epidemiology (or quantitative methods, or health care policy, or something else), or a fellowship in informatics, etc.

I think the strength of the GIM fellowship is also very important, you'll want to find out what graduates of the program are currently doing and is it similar to what you are planning on doing, or at least are the opportunities there.

 

[staup]

The decision to do an academic GIM fellowship should rest on what exactly your goals are.

If you want to do research, as in many significant publications per year, you absolutely need research training if you don't already have it, and one of the best ways to do that is an academic GIM fellowship. Whether you want to be a hospitalist, practice primary care, or whatever, there are more or less about 10 good ones throughout the country. The RWJ fellowships: Yale, Penn, UCLA, Michigan. Then the NRSA related gen med fellowships: Hopkins, Harvard, Chicago, UW, UCSF, and Stanford. UCLA also has a big NRSA program. They're other good ones, but those are the big ones off the top of my head. I have never heard much GIM wise coming from Mayo or OHSU.

Very rarely does someone become a good MD researcher without doing a research based fellowship.

If you want to mainly practice medicine, in or out of the hospital, and get involved in administrative and quality improvement type stuff through the practice, you basically don't need much training. If you come from any respectable university based program you could likely easily get a good job and work your way up from there without a fellowship.

Hope that helps.