How common is it to do a CCM fellowship even though going into another field?

I only know of two guys who did the whole CCM/peds surg thing, and it was because they did not match in peds surg, so they did CCM to bide their time/boost their CV until they could apply again.

 

I agree. Many places offer a CCM fellowship to be done during lab time rather than doing bench/lab work. I was on rotation during the fellow applicant interviews this year for peds surg, and the question that always comes up is "what happens if you don't match?" The response that always seems to generate the best rating is CCM for a year with reapplication for a peds fellowship.

 

I'm finishing up a critical care (surgical) fellowship in June. My program "requires" 2 years of research, but my first year of research didn't go particularly well. I needed another option for my second year and since it was available, I ended up doing the CC fellowship. I have no intention of going into surgical critical care as a career--I'm headed for endocrine surgery, although I do enjoy CC and may need to use my certification while building an endocrine practice. Interestingly, I just returned from an endocrine surgery meeting and a fair number of the surgeons I met there had done a CC fellowship.

 

My opinion is:

Your time in the lab may produce some papers...maybe not.
As well stated:

you will ALWAYS have that diploma/certificate of added qualifications long after new papers are published...and you can still do research down the line if you want