Heme onc fellowship questions re lifestyle and research

[Appellatelove]

I’m incoming IM intern debating between primary care and heme onc but I guess given how competitive heme onc is I’ll have to proceed as if I’m applying heme onc.

I’ve been looking at fellowships and it seems that some programs have a heavy research component. What does that look like day-to-day as a fellow? Is it mainly working from home on those days? Since my interest is health disparities, I don’t anticipate wet lab work (unless they make you?) Would that mean lifestyle wise, I’d be able to be a pretty involved parent during the fellowship?

TIA

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[sallyhasanidea]

1.5 years clinical 1.5 years research with 1 day clinic a week during this time. Work in a “computational” lab or clinical outcomes lb and moonlight the rest of the time to enjoy your 300k hospitalist salary during fellowship

 

[CatFactorial]

I’m incoming IM intern debating between primary care and heme onc but I guess given how competitive heme onc is I’ll have to proceed as if I’m applying heme onc.

I’ve been looking at fellowships and it seems that some programs have a heavy research component. What does that look like day-to-day as a fellow? Is it mainly working from home on those days? Since my interest is health disparities, I don’t anticipate wet lab work (unless they make you?) Would that mean lifestyle wise, I’d be able to be a pretty involved parent during the fellowship?

TIA

In my first year of fellowship, I had 12 straight clinical months, about 50 overnight calls, and 12 weekends worked. 2nd and 3rd year, 6 inpatient months, 12 months of research. Calls and weekends went down dramatically after 1st year, but expectations for research output went up.

My research months were one half-day of clinic a week but I was doing bench work. My cofellows doing outcomes research were in the clinical investigator track in my fellowship, which involved more clinic days a week. Different programs do things differently but my point is that research months are not essentially Zoom it in, you’ll still be busy.

Speaking from personal experience but having a kid was feasible only because I got lucky and got a medical center daycare spot; no idea what I’d have done if not.

1.5 years clinical 1.5 years research with 1 day clinic a week during this time. Work in a “computational” lab or clinical outcomes lb and moonlight the rest of the time to enjoy your 300k hospitalist salary during fellowship

This is mostly nonsense.

 

[Mehena]

I second @CatFactorial assessment.

 

[Meridian32]

I’ve been looking at fellowships and it seems that some programs have a heavy research component. What does that look like day-to-day as a fellow? Is it mainly working from home on those days? Since my interest is health disparities, I don’t anticipate wet lab work (unless they make you?) Would that mean lifestyle wise, I’d be able to be a pretty involved parent during the fellowship?

I'm a second year heme/onc fellow at a research heavy program where double boarding fellows do 18 clinical and 18 research months and single boarding fellows do 12 clinical and 12-24 research months (depending on whether they want to take 2 or 3 years to finish fellowship - most take the full 3). I'm double boarding, so am almost done with my 18 clinical months, and have had 6 research months so far. My 3rd year will be all research. The research months are 0.5 days/week of clinic if doing lab research and 2 days/week of clinic if doing clinical research, with the rest of the time protected for research. For me, having that flexibility was great, and it was basically like having a normal office job with flexibility to do child dropoffs/pickups as needed. The clinical time can be busy, but in my experience, is still a lot more reasonable than internal medicine residency - e.g., there are significantly fewer weekends on service, and all call is from home so I'm never in the hospital overnight. I think it's definitely easier to be an involved parent during heme/onc fellowship compared to internal medicine residency, though it may be more challenging, at least during inpatient rotations, compared to being a primary care attending.

 

[geniusindisguise]

Curious to know, what is the usual number of inpatient months in a typical academic program with a 18/18 month clinical/research breakdown and what are the hours like during these months?

 

[whoknows2012]

Curious to know, what is the usual number of inpatient months in a typical academic program with a 18/18 month clinical/research breakdown and what are the hours like during these months?

I think all together it came to ~10-12 months total;
1 month allo
1 month auto
1 month leukemia
1 month lymphoma myeloma
2 months benign heme
2 months solid tumor

(The above during first year the other 3 months were outpatient and 1 month vacation)

3rd year after research (the last 6 months) another 3-4 months inpatient doing heme solid tumor and electives of choice.

The hours vary; at worst for me it was 8:30-6 and occasionally writing notes from home. The worst part of it was call once a week for the entire year 1st year which if it was a busy call and you were a heavy inpatient service the calls could start banging up against the ongoing clinical work for the day leading to longer hours. I actually didn’t find the hours too bad during inpatient months it was more the complexity of the cases and family
meetings and new consults that were both emotionally and physically draining

 

[easy1]

I'm a second year heme/onc fellow at a research heavy program where double boarding fellows do 18 clinical and 18 research months and single boarding fellows do 12 clinical and 12-24 research months (depending on whether they want to take 2 or 3 years to finish fellowship - most take the full 3). I'm double boarding, so am almost done with my 18 clinical months, and have had 6 research months so far. My 3rd year will be all research. The research months are 0.5 days/week of clinic if doing lab research and 2 days/week of clinic if doing clinical research, with the rest of the time protected for research. For me, having that flexibility was great, and it was basically like having a normal office job with flexibility to do child dropoffs/pickups as needed. The clinical time can be busy, but in my experience, is still a lot more reasonable than internal medicine residency - e.g., there are significantly fewer weekends on service, and all call is from home so I'm never in the hospital overnight. I think it's definitely easier to be an involved parent during heme/onc fellowship compared to internal medicine residency, though it may be more challenging, at least during inpatient rotations, compared to being a primary care attend

This is very informative. I'm looking for a research-heavy fellowship similar to this. I'm trying to make a list of research-heavy hemonc fellowships, but there is not much information out there. Any advice on how to find them ? Also, what is the expectation for pubs. I have about 7-8 publications on peer reviewed literature, with some h-index ones. What's the expectation when it comes to research to be a competitive applicant ?
PS: I'm an IMG with not so terrible scores 220s/230s in a mid tier univ program

 

[randomhemoncpd]

Not really the number of pubs but quality. Case reports in a throwaway journal that isn’t well known count for very little. First author papers in a reputable journal count for a lot—will take a single first author research paper even in a lower tier (impact factor 4ish) journal over 20 case reports in Cureus. A first author review paper in a good journal is well regarded too — it tells me you can do academic writing well (or that you have a very generous mentor). I actually dig through the research section and look at the authorship order and the quality of the work to help decide who to interview.

 

[easy1]

I have a couple of papers as first author and one of them has an impact factor close to 7. about 4 other papers as second author, all with impact factor>5, one with IF 15. All are in basic science, cancer related peer reviewed pubs. Would this be a good application if I continue to try to publish. Anything specific I need to keep in mind.

How does the fellowship schedule look like. The clinical rotations and the research part?

 

[gutonc]

I have a couple of papers as first author and one of them has an impact factor close to 7. about 4 other papers as second author, all with impact factor>5, one with IF 15. All are in basic science, cancer related peer reviewed pubs. Would this be a good application if I continue to try to publish. Anything specific I need to keep in mind.

That's more than sufficient and you don't really need to publish much else. Are you still a student and thinking applying PSTP/Research Pathway or are you a resident looking at fellowship application?

How does the fellowship schedule look like. The clinical rotations and the research part?

This is super variable from program to program and between "clinical" and "research" tracks. In virtually all programs, your first year will be fully clinical and very busy. For most standard programs you'll do 18 clinical months and 18 "research" months which are usually clinical/outcomes research combined with a lot of clinic time.

Research track programs are typically 12 months of clinical (usually even a bit more intense than the typical first year and generally single boarded) followed by 3 years of ~80% protected research time (usually lab-based basic/translational) and 20% clinic (again, usually a half day "continuity" and another half day of sub-specialty based on your clinical interest).

 

[easy1]

That's more than sufficient and you don't really need to publish much else. Are you still a student and thinking applying PSTP/Research Pathway or are you a resident looking at fellowship application?

This is super variable from program to program and between "clinical" and "research" tracks. In virtually all programs, your first year will be fully clinical and very busy. For most standard programs you'll do 18 clinical months and 18 "research" months which are usually clinical/outcomes research combined with a lot of clinic time.

Research track programs are typically 12 months of clinical (usually even a bit more intense than the typical first year and generally single boarded) followed by 3 years of ~80% protected research time (usually lab-based basic/translational) and 20% clinic (again, usually a half day "continuity" and another half day of sub-specialty based on your clinical interest).

I'm a resident looking at fellowship application, from a low to mid-tier relatively new academic program. Looking for research heavy programs. Where would that put my profile ? How much of the publications should be completely cancer-related. I also heard you need to have some ASCO or ASH pubs. And what is expected during research months, are we expected to get more manuscripts published ? How does the dedicated research period look like ?
I have seen programs being 1 clinical + 1 or 2 years of research depending on single boarded or double boarded. Is it longer than that ?

I know that's a lot of questions, Thank you so much in advance. I'm trying to find the right information, seems to be difficult to find any info about research years.

 

[gutonc]

I have seen programs being 1 clinical + 1 or 2 years of research depending on single boarded or double boarded. Is it longer than that ?

I know that's a lot of questions, Thank you so much in advance. I'm trying to find the right information, seems to be difficult to find any info about research years.

This part is easy. For a standard Hem/Onc fellowship, you need 18 mos of clinical work and 18 mos of "research". Single board programs are 12+12 but some will tack on a 3rd year to "help you with your research" (AKA, get cheap labor out of you). Some programs are 2 full clinical years + 12 mos of research. Research pathway programs (which clearly aren't relevant to you) are 1 clinical year + 3 research years.

 

[easy1]

Thank you so much for the detailed responses. Is it ok if I DM you ?