Groove,
I come from a similar background and experience in IT as a consultant and systems administrator . I am a PGY1 and have been thinking about the Informatics Fellowship after completing residency; however, I have a loans to pay off and I'm not getting any younger.
Just what are the benefits of Informatics training? Higher Salary? Administrative Position? I'm trying to get a sense of the benefits and risks and make an analysis in the next 3 years.
I hear you brother... I'm older too and am considering these same dilemmas. The benefits would be that you can gain subspecialty training which would obviously be a boon as the field grows and the health field looks for experts with more formal training and credentialing. The disadvantage in not doing the fellowship is that.... it might be more difficult to break into the informatics field and over time... board certification would be viewed upon favorably. Probably more so in an academic environment, but the training in and of itself would be valuable. I mean, I've designed data centers and network infrastructures, migrated complex internal processing systems to various new technologies, etc.. but I've never, for instance... implemented an EHR system, or any of the multitude of related healthcare specific applications of the field. Would it be any more difficult? Probably not. Would I need 2 years of fellowship to learn the needed skills? No. But with these board sub specialties, you have to learn to play by their rules. Plus, even if the 2 years wasn't needed from a practical standpoint, you would still gain valuable additional training. A hospital would be reticent to let you migrate an EHR system if you couldn't provide experience specific to the healthcare industry.
Ultimately there are a couple main ways you could go...
1)Academic, research oriented informatics track
2)Chief Medical Informations Officer for a hospital or related position within a group, etc..
You could even apply the training in an entrepreuneurial aspect.
Your salary could possibly be higher, but I don't know. I've seen anywhere from 250K to 600K for a CMIO. I would encourage you to do it more if you have an intense interest and intend on being involved in the field for the remainder of your career.
Personally, I always want to do clinical EM as long as I can. I don't think I would ever choose to do something like this full time and neglect my clinical skills as an Emergency Physician, after all, I still love the field. However, it would be a great bridge between your existing IT background and clinical skills as a physician. As you got older, you could theoretically migrate more towards the tech aspect and less from the clinical aspect. I think working in Informatics would be easier to do than EM at 65 but who knows.
Regardless, give it some thought. I'm trying to figure out salary information for the various fellowships and moonlighting abilities, etc.. Just how much time the fellowship requires of you. If it doesn't require all of your time, and you only have minimal clinical duties in the ED, then you could essentially moonlight as much as you could handle to augment your income while you completed the fellowship requirements.
I would be reticent to commit to 2 more years with the standard 75K fellowship pay and no ability/time to moonlight or work outside of the institution. It just wouldn't make financial sense with my debt burden, but my impression so far is that Informatics is not like Critical Care or some of the other time intensive fellowships. Plus, it would be a far easier learning curve for someone with an extensive IT background.
