Med/peds jobs after graduation: hospital or outpatient

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mommy2three

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Hello,
I am primarily applying to family medicine but would be very happy doing med/peds as well.
I want to practice in an outpatient community setting and I was recently informed that most med/peds programs are more geared toward inpatient care and hospitalist training.
Anyone have any insight on whether this is true or where to go to dig around for more information on placement post training?

Thanks :)

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Hello,
I am primarily applying to family medicine but would be very happy doing med/peds as well.
I want to practice in an outpatient community setting and I was recently informed that most med/peds programs are more geared toward inpatient care and hospitalist training.
Anyone have any insight on whether this is true or where to go to dig around for more information on placement post training?

Thanks :)


The training of Med-Peds is more inpatient focused compare to family medicine, who would spend more time in an outpatient setting. It's the consequence of trying to satisfy the requirements of both the ABIM and ABP.

A survey of graduating Med-Peds residents showed that 89% would choose Med-Peds again, and 93% planned on taking care of adults and kids. On average, the graduating residents desired more training in outpatient procedures, office management, and career planning (which Family Medicine Residents get during their residency), and less time in the NICU. They felt equally prepared to care for adults and children.

Melgar, T; Chamberlain, J. K.; Cull, W. L.; Kaelber, D. C.; Kan, B. D. Training Experiences of Combined Internal Medicine-Pediatric Residents Academic Medicine 2006;81:440-446



The studies that have looked at Med-Peds graduates have shown that roughly half of Med-Peds graduates go into primary care after residency and the vast majority of them see both adults and kids.

A survey in 2003/2004 showed that 55% of graduating med-peds residents were going into primary care. 17% were going to be hospitalists, and 18% going into fellowship. (note that the study was in 2003/2004, not sure if the percentage going into hospitalists have changed). Top Med-Peds fellowships in the surveys were Infectious Disease, Allergy/Immunology, Critical Care, Endocrinology.

Chamberlain, John; Cull W; Melgar T; Kaelber D; Kan B.
The effect of dual training in internal medicine and pediatrics on the career path and job search experience of pediatric graduates. J Pediatrics. 2007, 151:419-24.



In regards to the types of practice, another survey found that Med-Peds physicians (in primary care) saw 43% of their visits were children, compare to 15.5% for family medicine.

Fortuna RJ, Ting DY, Kaelber DC, and Simon SR
Characteristics of medicine-pediatrics practices: results from the national ambulatory medical care survey. Academic Medicine 2009 Mar;84(3):396-401.



As for job opportunities - they are plenty (as of this posts). There is a shortage of primary care, and you have the option of joining an IM group, a peds group, a Med-Peds group, or a Family Medicine group (you can't cover their OB patients though). I get unsolicited emails and letters from recruiters with job openings and opportunities all the time (for inpatient hospitalists work as well as outpatient office settings).
 
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