NIH clinical fellowships

[WorkaholicsAnon]

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How are the clinical fellowship programs (e.g. endocrine, ID, heme, rheum)offered at the NIH viewed, in terms of quality, by the medicine world? Competitive to get into? Anyone have experience with any of these programs there?

 

[WorkaholicsAnon]

Anybody know? Anyone at all. . .? There is a dearth of info out there about this.

 

[nattygann01]

Thanks for asking....I've wondered the same thing myself.

I've also understood that NIH fellowships are great in that you see some of the wildest pathology in the country. On the flip side, you may not get the bread and butter of your field. I wonder if this is truly the case...

 

[Int Med 2008]

I can say a little about allergy and immunology at NIH as I spoke with the program director during the AAAAI meeting. Its super competitive, one of the top 5 in the country is my best guess. They have 2-3 spots each year. They also provide 50,000/year tuition pay back plus whatever money you would pay in taxes on the 50,000. Its really a 4 year fellowship as they are looking for basic scientist researchers. 1 clinical year and 3 lab. You get an amazing clinical experience considering you see patients at NIH, the bethesda naval hospital, and I think one of the private practices. Apparently they see more patients than any other program. You will need signifant basic and or translational research to be considered for the program. That is all I know.

 

[c5a]

i did an infectious diseases rotation there last year for one month... zebras galore! i was a 4th year on a team (me, a fellow, and the attending). the fellow was also rotating through there, and he was from another ID program. he told me there was a vast difference between NIH and "real world" ID.

everything is strongly research based over there. it seemed that most people were either going to or coming from johns hopkins... in fact, one attending was in her 6th year of fellowship. i think that was even unusual for NIH.

when i was eating lunch one day, i overheard the an allergy fellow arguing with one of the attendings... he was complaining about wanting to finish up sooner, to start living his life, but the research contingency is very strong at NIH, and if it's not implicity stated, it's certainly implied that you will need to hang around a while and do more fellowship years than most other programs.

we saw "rare" infectious diseases on a regular basis. you work on a close level with the NHLBI team, because of all the chemo going on, they get all sorts of fungal infections.

interesting place to say the least. and about the loan repayment program, i heard it was $15,000 (from the one who was in her 6th year of fellowship) instead of $50,000. but this was ID, not allergy/immuno. it may be different.

 

[WorkaholicsAnon]

Thanks guys for the replies so far. Hmm, sounds like it's an unpredictable way to do a fellowship. . .almost like being a ph.d student without actually getting a ph.d to show for it. 👎

Any current fellows out there care to share their experience?

 

[king of scut]

i am a current NCI fellow. it is all about the research here. as far as the NCI goes, we can do research at any of the nci or nih labs and we come with our own funding, so we dont have to worry about applying for grants. clinical research is an option, but there are zebras galore and not much exposure to bread and butter oncology (we do get 6 months at nnmc (navy bethesda) but that is military med and is in its own different world). the breakdown is: 1 year clinical with 6mos at navy and 6 mo at nci. 2nd year our clinical responsibility is limited to 1/2 day continuity clinic. 3rd year, clinical rotations are optional.
the financial benefits are there. loan repayment is 20k a year for our program. 2nd and 3rd year call is optional and if you do sign up for call its either 12 calls/6mo or 24 calls/yr - paid 12.5k extra per year if you sign up for the 12 calls and 25k extra per year if you take the 24.
opportunities are there post grad as fellows go on to private practice v. academic careers. fda, ctep, and other regulatory institutions are other places where recent fellows are landed.
i came from a pretty clinically focused residency with a large volume of patients, so this environment required a lot of getting used to. you really should be committed to heavy duty research if you come here otherwise you might not be so happy, but if you're like me and want to get your hands in the lab/clinical trials, the opportunities abound aplenty.

 

[Lasclalo]

To the posters above (or anyone):
1. Does anyone have a feeling about the difference in competetiveness in the various medicine subspecialties within the NIH? I mean, I assume that like everywhere else hem/onc is more competetive, but for such a research intense program it may be different. I am interested in research oriented infectious disease career and I will theoretically be a very competetive (but not world-beater) applicant for fellowship.
2. Do most of the fellows come from specific residencies (e.g. are there "pipeline" programs)?

thanks
(PM me if you don't want to reply in a public forum)

 

[WorkaholicsAnon]

No pm's!! I made this thread, so anyone who has anything to say in response to a post here, can do so publicly.

Lasclalo, if you want to ask your question for a private pm, make a different thread. That was very rude.

Thanks.

 

[Lasclalo]

Hey,

I am very sorry. I didn't mean to offend the poster. Note to all: If I receive any PMs regarding this topic, I will post them publicly in this thread. To justify, I just thought that if a person wanted to talk to me specifically about the ID NIH portion (not germane to the opening thread) they could contact me. I should have explained myself better. You are also right that I should have started a new thread, so I apologize.

 

[WorkaholicsAnon]

Hey,

I am very sorry. I didn't mean to offend the poster. Note to all: If I receive any PMs regarding this topic, I will post them publicly in this thread. To justify, I just thought that if a person wanted to talk to me specifically about the ID NIH portion (not germane to the opening thread) they could contact me. I should have explained myself better. You are also right that I should have started a new thread, so I apologize.

Well I would be interested in hearing any responses about the ID NIH fellowship too, so no need to pm about that. Thanks I appreciate the understanding.