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

[cardsurgguy]

---

Members don't see this ad.

I've noticed surgeons in certain fields doing the 1 year surgical critical care fellowship despite the fact that they are not CCM docs, but are some other type of surgeon

For example, I've seen peds surgeons at a couple of different medical school have surgical critical care fellowships.

Two reasons come to mind when I see this

1. I would imagine they are doing this to become better at managing the type of patients they are taking care of (ie obviously very sick patients on the PICU, not exactly same day surgery type of stuff)

2. Peds surgery is so ridiculously competitive, so they did this to help them get a fellowship?😕


I'm taking a wild guess that it's number one. If other types of surgeons did the same thing, I'd definitely say #1, but the fact that I've only seen it in peds surgery makes me wonder.

 

[Bitsy3221]

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.

 

[Winged Scapula]

The CC fellowship is popular with surgery residents for a number of reasons:

- if they are truly interested in CCM

- they anticipate it being useful in their future career (ie, field with sick patients - Vascular, Trauma, Surg Onc)

- its a nice year to take a break from surgical residency without having to be in the lab; the hours can be better (although not as good as in the lab)

- maybe it helps with competitive fellowships although most I know going into those fields (ie, like Peds) did lab work instead of CCM

 

[SocialistMD]

The CC fellowship is popular with surgery residents for a number of reasons:

- if they are truly interested in CCM

- they anticipate it being useful in their future career (ie, field with sick patients - Vascular, Trauma, Surg Onc)

- its a nice year to take a break from surgical residency without having to be in the lab; the hours can be better (although not as good as in the lab)

- maybe it helps with competitive fellowships although most I know going into those fields (ie, like Peds) did lab work instead of CCM

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.

 

[LaCirujana]

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.

 

[cardsurgguy]

It seems to make sense to me at least that a person who is in a field that routinely takes care of really sick people would would be interested in doing a CCM fellowship.

For 1 extra year of training, you pick up a lot of extra skills and in depth knowledge that will help you with all the critical patients.

And hell, surgery is already such a long course as it is, so what the hell is 1 extra year anyways??

 

[Skylizard]

My opinion is:

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

...For 1 extra year of training, you pick up a lot of extra... in depth knowledge that will help you with all the critical patients...

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