Internal Medicine Fellowships in the Military

[Konigstiger]

I'll just start off with my main question: is there a document I can look at which details the number of IM fellowship spots and which specific fellowships are offered every year? Navy documents would be most relevant to me, but anything from Army/Air Force is also appreciated. I am wondering if it is even feasible to do a fellowship in the military, or if the spots are just so limited and hard to get that it's not worth pursuing.

From my own preliminary search, it seems like out of the three Navy IM residencies, San Diego and Walter Reed offer the most 'accessible' path to fellowship (though San Diego has very little information available about their fellowships). Portsmouth, from what I can see, does not offer any fellowships. But for San Diego and Walter Reed, the slots seem fairly limited (for example, only Walter Reed offers Oncology and they only take four fellows per year across all services, so it looks like the chance of becoming an oncologist through the military is extremely low).

So ultimately I think I have three choices:

• Military IM residency + apply for military fellowship
• Military IM residency and then leave to apply for civilian fellowships (one reason why this concerns me is because I would presumably have to complete IM residency and then pay back seven years to the military because of HPSP and residency... Would civilian fellowships look down on someone applying so far out from residency?)
• GMO and leave and try to do everything on the civilian side

For those of you who have done an IM fellowship, which of these choices did you choose and why? I have no firsthand experience with any of this, so I would be grateful to hear from those who do.

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[j4pac]

I'll just start off with my main question: is there a document I can look at which details the number of IM fellowship spots and which specific fellowships are offered every year? Navy documents would be most relevant to me, but anything from Army/Air Force is also appreciated. I am wondering if it is even feasible to do a fellowship in the military, or if the spots are just so limited and hard to get that it's not worth pursuing.

From my own preliminary search, it seems like out of the three Navy IM residencies, San Diego and Walter Reed offer the most 'accessible' path to fellowship (though San Diego has very little information available about their fellowships). Portsmouth, from what I can see, does not offer any fellowships. But for San Diego and Walter Reed, the slots seem fairly limited (for example, only Walter Reed offers Oncology and they only take four fellows per year across all services, so it looks like the chance of becoming an oncologist through the military is extremely low).

So ultimately I think I have three choices:

• Military IM residency + apply for military fellowship
• Military IM residency and then leave to apply for civilian fellowships (one reason why this concerns me is because I would presumably have to complete IM residency and then pay back seven years to the military because of HPSP and residency... Would civilian fellowships look down on someone applying so far out from residency?)
• GMO and leave and try to do everything on the civilian side

For those of you who have done an IM fellowship, which of these choices did you choose and why? I have no firsthand experience with any of this, so I would be grateful to hear from those who do.

I’ve known of quite a few IM guys in the Navy that did fellowship after commitment. One went to Hopkins...highly doubt it hindered any of them.

 

[Gastrapathy]

Of the three paths, I think the least common is finishing your obligation after residency and then doing a fellowship as a civilian. It’s hard to go back into training as an experienced attending.

SD and Bethesda residents don’t have an advantage in fellowship selection over Portsmouth.

Fellowship availability is totally unpredictable at this point.

 

[j4pac]

I really liked Rheumatology, but while I was in there was only one Rheum fellow selected every 3 years or so. Thought it was way too much to risk doing a complete IM
residency to only have a remote chance of getting Rheum. It played into my reasoning to GMO/GTFO...just to ensure I went into a residency without a fellowship that I’d be happy.

 

[ClipArtBananas]

You can look up air force fellowship availability by exploring air force physician education website. For now, most IM fellowships are available, but that's likely changing soon.