How common is pediatrics before sports medicine fellowships?

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.

jason345

Full Member
2+ Year Member
Joined
Jan 14, 2020
Messages
24
Reaction score
8
Can anyone tell me about peds to sports fellowships in terms of likelihood of getting into fellowship and job market after. I understand most sports medicine Drs spend a portion of their time on their primary specialty. How common is it for someone to come from pediatrics? What is the salary for sports medicine dr. in the northeast. Pediatrician salary's are stockly low (mid 100s in NY). Will a sports fellowship change that?

Members don't see this ad.
 
My hunch is peds + SM fellowship and your result will be a pediatrician who might take more of the MSK stuff in the group. Kids get injured less than skeletally-mature individuals, so though I am sure you could get the hand of OA care in a fellowship, groups may be less-keen on having a pediatrician on staff, as adults would question why they are seeing a pediatrician. Unless at a large academic center, I think your prospects of a pure peds SM physician are very limited.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 users
There are some more adult-geared sports medicine fellowships that take pediatric fellows and also some sports fellowships that are housed under pediatric departments. I have met a few pediatric/sports trained physicians. Their practices varied. One was more of a pediatric concussion specialist and a fellowship program director. Another was housed under the orthopedic department at an academic center with PM&R/sports and ER/sports and did 1-2 half days of sports a week, while the other days were general pediatrics. He did a lot of pre-participation physicals for middle school and high school kids prior to their program starts. The last one I met does community pediatric medicine with sports flavoring. He covers some local high school teams. I think practices vary considerably.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Members don't see this ad :)
Agree with above. Where I trained most of the peds/sports physicians did concussion work, apophysitis, fracture care, and exercise prescription. Did some inner city high school coverage as well.

Based on your goals fellowship can change your path and let you do more full spectrum sports. For example - the head primary care sports medicine physician at Ole Miss is peds residency + ASMI sports fellowship trained. Super nice guy.

Pro teams will not want a peds+sports person though. Will need one of the other specialties.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
We had 2 recent ones from my residency program. One stayed on with the fellowship as the peds SM experience to fellows. The other does primary care peds in a ~100k town and does integrated SM into the clinic. He’s hooked in with the local sports teams and ortho group to get some non-op business. If in a big enough city where there is a peds ortho group then they may have use for a peds SM doc so they can be in the OR more.
 
Top