any qualified responders,
if you could do it again would you do a 4 yr AP/CP pathology residency or a 6 year (w/ 2 research years) dermatology residency? + why?
only serious repliers, pleez.
i believe i had the same quandary a few years back. i applied to both derm and path and needless to say, i did not match to derm. fortunately though, i will be doing a dermpath fellowship after residency.
ask yourself what it is you really would like to do in the end. for me, as long as i was "studying" skin, i knew i was going to be happy. so, i could have gone either way. however, to re-apply to derm without any guarantee that i was going to get a spot became too bleak an option for me. i thought about doing a research fellowship after not matching to derm but most places wanted me to do at least 2 years, still without the guarantee of a spot. plus, there were people i knew who applied 3x and still did not get in. and these people, like myself (modesty aside), were stellar applicants. unfortunately, there are way too many stellar applicants who do not match to derm every year. when you do not match the first time, your chances are decreased even more the second time around.
if you absolutely would like to see patients, then you need to pursue derm. but if like me, you would be happy as long as you got to study skin, then path is a very good alternative. it would be harder to get a dermpath slot via path, but it is doable. note that there are a lot of derm-trained dermatopathologists out there who have given up patient care altogether. like most of us, they have seen the light, ie that patient care is overrated and that passing glass is much more gratifying.
if you are focused on doing dermpath, are planning on practicing only dermpath after training, and if you know you are highly competitive, industrious, and determined to get a dermpath fellowship, then i would do a 3-year AP training +/- surg path fellowship, then dermpath.
do a search in this forum using "dermatopathology" and you will see a ton of threads on this topic and will find a lot of insightful pieces of advice.
