Obesity Medicine Fellowship

[Rashay]

Hi all,

I am in my 1st of a 2 year endocrinology fellowship and beginning to lay down the framework for job seeking vs pursuing one more year of obesity fellowship training. I an on a J1 visa thus the early job hunt to allow enough time for paperwork and waiver etc.

Has anyone in my shoes, or non IMG for this matter, gone through with an obesity fellowship and if so: What are some advantages and disadvantages from your experience? How did this help (or not) with future plans in your career?

Thank you

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[Raryn]

Have not done an obesity medicine fellowship but have considered getting obesity medicine certified. I think that if you're an endocrinologist, the fellowship is mostly a waste of time - there are two paths to getting qualified for the ABOM:

1) Fellowship path. This actually only requires that your fellowship director attests that you have 500 hours of training on the topic of obesity. It is actually possible to do this *within* an endocrine fellowship - if you ask your fellowship program director to add a half day of elective clinic with your obesity specialist for you, you can probably count the additional training you get regarding weight management in general and have them attest that it all adds up. I know one endocrinologist who did that. At that point, the only additional work you'd need to do is take the test.

2) CME path - lets say you don't have a program director who is playing along and you can't meet the requirement for the fellowship path without adding an extra year. No big deal. You can pursue the CME path - quite literally, you can just go to one conference for 30 hours of CME (there's 3-4 a year) and then get 30 additional hours of CME focused on obesity from any number of sources. As long as you complete those 60 hours within a 3 year period, you can then take the ABOM test. Total cost for all that is on the order of $5k (each conference and the test itself are around $1500) - but that's nothing compared to a year of attending salary.

You get zero additional benefits from a standalone obesity fellowship except for the dedicated training time - and honestly, you get enough principles of obesity between an endocrine fellowship +/- a couple obesity dedicated courses.

 

[rokshana]

Agree with Raryn

Also most of the obesity fellowship are through gi...Harvard had a 2 year fellowship that is endocrine based...UAB as well...most people use the obesity fellowship as a stepping stone to GI

 

[Snooks]

Have not done an obesity medicine fellowship but have considered getting obesity medicine certified. I think that if you're an endocrinologist, the fellowship is mostly a waste of time - there are two paths to getting qualified for the ABOM:

1) Fellowship path. This actually only requires that your fellowship director attests that you have 500 hours of training on the topic of obesity. It is actually possible to do this *within* an endocrine fellowship - if you ask your fellowship program director to add a half day of elective clinic with your obesity specialist for you, you can probably count the additional training you get regarding weight management in general and have them attest that it all adds up. I know one endocrinologist who did that. At that point, the only additional work you'd need to do is take the test.

2) CME path - lets say you don't have a program director who is playing along and you can't meet the requirement for the fellowship path without adding an extra year. No big deal. You can pursue the CME path - quite literally, you can just go to one conference for 30 hours of CME (there's 3-4 a year) and then get 30 additional hours of CME focused on obesity from any number of sources. As long as you complete those 60 hours within a 3 year period, you can then take the ABOM test. Total cost for all that is on the order of $5k (each conference and the test itself are around $1500) - but that's nothing compared to a year of attending salary.

You get zero additional benefits from a standalone obesity fellowship except for the dedicated training time - and honestly, you get enough principles of obesity between an endocrine fellowship +/- a couple obesity dedicated courses.

I am early in my career in obesity medicine and exploring pathways towards practice. Do you or someone in your network know of a source of data regarding obesity medicine clinician salaries for ABOM certified MDs? I am having great difficulty finding anything about this online.

 

[Raryn]

I am early in my career in obesity medicine and exploring pathways towards practice. Do you or someone in your network know of a source of data regarding obesity medicine clinician salaries for ABOM certified MDs? I am having great difficulty finding anything about this online.

Not aware of anything formal, but I doubt it's all that different from primary care money overall.