in house fellowships a must?

[suckerfree]

How important is it to have fellowships of interest at the residency program to which one is applying? I am very, very interested in a particular california program but noticed they don't have a heme path fellowship, and not too many people from the program in the past year have gone on to heme path fellowships. Should I be concerned?

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[yaah]

Probably not as there are a lot of hemepath fellowship programs out there.

Advantages of doing a residency at a program with fellowships:
1) The fellowship director will likely get to know you, and potentially you have an advantage in application (which may not get you the spot, however)
2) You will work in residency with acknowledged experts in the field, who can write you letters and provide you contacts with outside programs
3) The program has sufficient volume to support a fellowship, which means your residency training is not going to lack in that area either for specimen volume or teaching expertise (i.e., a program without a dermpath fellowship, for example, may have less dermpath volume and not train you as well)

Those are the major reasons. But many people get fellowships from outside programs. If you really like a program you should probably go there. You may have to work a bit harder at expressing interest in the field, and perhaps doing an away rotation, but you might not have to go that far.

 

[mlw03]

How important is it to have fellowships of interest at the residency program to which one is applying? I am very, very interested in a particular california program but noticed they don't have a heme path fellowship, and not too many people from the program in the past year have gone on to heme path fellowships. Should I be concerned?

i consider it a bonus, but not essential. i'm leaning towards forensic, and some of my top choices have it, others don't. for the super-competitive stuff like derm, perhaps it's more important, but i'm not too worried that i'll be able to land a forensic fellowship in 2012 if i so desire one even if i end up at a program that doesn't have it in house/in city.

 

[b&ierstiefel]

How important is it to have fellowships of interest at the residency program to which one is applying? I am very, very interested in a particular california program but noticed they don't have a heme path fellowship, and not too many people from the program in the past year have gone on to heme path fellowships. Should I be concerned?

That would be a concern for me. I am all in favor of people training in programs where not only the fellowship of interest is present but fellowships in multiple are offered. My reasons are in line with what yaah listed earlier.

The program you describe would raise serious red flags for me.

You may have to work a bit harder at expressing interest in the field, and perhaps doing an away rotation...

Exactly. Think about it...why would you subject yourself to this when you don't have to? Why make things harder then they need to be?

THINGS DO NOT NEED TO BE THAT HARD.