Does anyone one know anything about the competitiveness of the ACGME accredited Neurology-based pain fellowships? Are they as interventional as the anesthesia-pain fellowships? I think that there are only four fellowships.
Neurology Based Pain Fellowships
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From my understanding, they are pretty much the same thing. You get to do lots of interventions. There are definitely more than 4 fellowships. You can check it out on aan.com, just find the link for fellowships (it's under the resident tab). Each program actually has a description too. But notice that other programs have pain fellowships and although might have a preference to other fields, they'll still accept neurology residents.
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All the neurology pain fellowships are in their infancy. As of 2 yrs ago there was only one worthwhile program and they only took one fellow. Things may have changed but just make sure you do your homework and compare them to anesthesia based pain programs. Don't limit yourself to the neuro programs. There are several good anesthesia programs that accept neuro applicants.
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Anesthesia, PM&R, Neuro, and psych graduates are qualified to apply for ACGME-accredited pain fellowships. It doesn't matter what their "specialty of origin" is or which department the fellowship is based.
However, my experience has been that neurology and psychiatry graduates have had harder times getting fellowships because of a general lack of exposure to pain medicine in their training programs. Both anesthesia and PM&R residencies have pain medicine training requirements and procedural training requirements---this is generally not the case in neurology/psychiatry. However, if a neuro resident is savvy and is at an institution where these experiences can be arranged, I think that he or she would be very "marketable" with applying to fellowships.
However, my experience has been that neurology and psychiatry graduates have had harder times getting fellowships because of a general lack of exposure to pain medicine in their training programs. Both anesthesia and PM&R residencies have pain medicine training requirements and procedural training requirements---this is generally not the case in neurology/psychiatry. However, if a neuro resident is savvy and is at an institution where these experiences can be arranged, I think that he or she would be very "marketable" with applying to fellowships.
