How to be competitive for fellowships in FM, and which fellowships are the most competitive?

[SuckySurgeon7]

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Sup board?

Like the title says, I'm wondering what the most important things are in an application that PD's look at to determine who will become the fellow. If anyone responding could put it in order, that would be phenomenal. I have perused the forum a little bit, and but I still feel like I'm guessing here:

1. LOR from current PD
2. Residency boards
3. Step scores from med school??? Not sure if these would apply here.

Okay, and I was also wondering what the order of competitiveness of the fellowships is (I know, a lot of it is probably based on the individual program, etc. and probably subjective. That's okay, I just wanna hear some opinions).

My guess is

1. EM fellowships b/c there aren't very many of them and EM is pretty competitive nowadays... plus there are a lot of FP's who seem to like the ER
2. Hospitalist fellowships because a lot of the people like the lifestyle and because there are so few of them... 11 on the AAFP website.
3. Sports med b/c I've heard these are a pretty cool addition to a practice: more injections, and pts are young and healthy as opposed to a geri fellowship, lots of cool imaging

On the other hand, there are 110 obstetrics fellowships around the nation, so I'm guessing that they might not be as competitive as some of these I've listed. And I doubt there's a lot of competition for something like some of the headache fellowships (had never even heard of those before the AAFP website search).

Thanks!
SS7

EDIT: Also, let's say you want to do an EM fellowship... should you do EM stuff for all your electives? Same goes for the OB fellowships. Maximize OB electives, or would you just use your electives for other stuff and hope to get the fellowship?

 

[styphon]

1. EM fellowships b/c there aren't very many of them and EM is pretty competitive nowadays... plus there are a lot of FP's who seem to like the ER
2. Hospitalist fellowships because a lot of the people like the lifestyle and because there are so few of them... 11 on the AAFP website.
3. Sports med b/c I've heard these are a pretty cool addition to a practice: more injections, and pts are young and healthy as opposed to a geri fellowship, lots of cool imaging

1. you can do EM in rural ER's regardless of having an "EM fellowship". The fellowship is actually a certificate of completion, and not an actual fellowship. It does not allow you to sit for any additional boards. Hospitals that are suburban and urban usually require EM boarded doctors - which the fellowship would not qualify you for. If someone was stuck on doing EM and FM, I would think they would do the EM/FM residency which gives you dual boards.
2. I think sports medicine would be the most competitive, and NOT for injections - I have never done a sports medicine fellowship, yet I inject >200 times a year. The sports medicine fellowship gives you the certification - which will help you work yourself into working for teams and ortho groups which in turn increases your income.
3. OB fellowships usually focus on getting you C/section priveledges, I would think these are also competitive as the amount of sites are limited.