Anna Biotic
Procalcitonin is for cowards
- Joined
- Jul 6, 2019
- Messages
- 27
- Reaction score
- 10
Post here for everything 2019-2020 Infectious Diseases Fellowship Application related
1) Why are you going into ID?!
2) How many programs are you applying to?
3) Any particular path in ID you're interested in?
Thanks for the honest perspective. How many patients + new consults per day do you average on an inpatient block?
I wish we had more insight from others as well. Not sure if anyone knows any threads with program reviews like this? I'm not finding much in my search.
Are you iMG ? how many IVs you got ? And is it difficult to match at Mayo and other big programs ?I recently finished ID fellowship at the University of Wisconsin and wanted to warn you guys about their program as I felt highly mislead on interview day and from their webpage especially related to the global health and research opportunities. They advertise a T-32 funded research opportunity at the completion of fellowship or the option to pursue an additional 1-2 years of an MPH. I was told on my interview day that I could continue with as much research training at completion of the program as I wanted and throughout my fellowship was told the same. Until it came time to apply for the T-32 and I was told I had about a 1:10 chance of winning it finding out in May prior to graduation in June. The T-32 generally goes to PhD microbiologists as UW has a top 5 micro PhD program. It was suggested to me that I could apply for a Women's Health fellowship for research funding. It appeared this was the only funding training grant that was a reliable option. I believe most other fellowship programs have more of a guarantee for the additional research years. Additionally, the program director did not provide guidance in finding mentors and the few faculty doing clinical research generally are working with assistant professors and not fellows.
The rotation schedule is odd as you work 1 week blocks in which you basically get killed. Rounds are very long. The fellow is given the impossible task of spending 5-7 hours rounding/day while expected to see all new consults on their own within a 2-3 hour time limit between morning table rounds and afternoon walk rounds. The fellow additionally receives criticism if they are unable to listen to the mid-level practitioners round on their patients. I was considered highly efficient and felt that these expectations were unrealistic. Weekends are brutal, working until 5-10 pm on weekends is common.
The global health opportunity on the website was in Nairobi. That program is no longer in place and the university is starting a program in Ethiopia where you basically travel with the associate program director for a few weeks to a month. It would be challenging with the rotation schedules to schedule this and it is not a more developed global health program that would be available at many other fellowship programs.
They talked a lot about program flexibility of which they have very little. Everyone does pretty much the same rotations on service. You do not have clinic while on service and then have 2-3 clinics on your non-service weeks to make up for this. The only "elective" time comes in that you could choose to do additional weeks on service at either a local community hospital or the peds hospital during your research/clinic weeks. Nobody did any of these during my time in fellowship as this would cut into your time to read, do research, or work on required presentations.
UW seems most interested in training their in-house applicants. All of the fellows in the past 4 years that did not do residency at UW considered quitting the program and did not feel supported during the program. They have at least 1 in house applicant upcoming this application cycle that will be staying. I am unsure why so many in-house applicants stay as the fellows from outside UW all felt we would have gone to other programs in retrospect. Madison is a very comfortable city to live in with beautiful lakes and very mild summers.
I think UW's program is best for someone who really wants to live in Madison for 2 years with good clinical training. You will not be respected as a colleague during your fellowship and will be killed when on service due to very long rounds and a heavy top-down team structure. As I discussed above, they have a large outsider bias and I never felt included as a "UW person" because I did not do residency training at UW. With this it seemed as if there was much less of an investment in training me.
I would highly recommend looking at the University of Minnesota for transplant or global health; Iowa for hospital epidemiology; or Indiana University for global health as alternatives to UW.
Anyone got IVs ?Good luck on submission day, everyone!
See you on the interview trail!
Do you live in Chicago ?And so it begins!
Let's kick off the interview invite list.
Ideally, it is most helpful if everyone copies the list forward, including the interviews they received with the date, this way it can help everyone who applied to those places know whether and when interviews were sent out. If rejections are sent out, the date of those would probably also be helpful to list.
****
7/16: Northwestern University
Do you live in Chicago ?
u got big names ! do you mind sharing your credentials?Interviews:
7/15: Beaumont, UVA
7/16: Northwestern, UMass, Stanford, Tufts
Rejections:
***
Added Tufts.
I just got Tufts. Didn't get any interviews today.u got big names ! do you mind sharing your credentials?
To keep the combined list up to date:
7/15: Beaumont, UVA
7/16: Northwestern, UMass, Stanford, Tufts, Rutgers
[/QUOTE)
Do you mind sharing your credentials like visa or AMG ? Research and scores ?
Is there a national rank list for ID fellowship programs?
I don't know of any top 10 rankings. In 2014 someone attempted to make a ranking list ( ID - Competitiveness of particular programs ). I don't have many thoughts on this person's list other then Virginia, UCLA, and WashU maybe I'd rank a little higher. I've only looked at those programs online and they generally seem to offer a lot. I wonder if the list isn't maybe biased towards HIV/global health training vs "competitiveness" with mainly large urban programs? UPMC isn't on the list which is a huge transplant center with lots of research (but no heme); Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic also aren't on the list which are huge transplant centers and I would think excellent training. The NIH also seems like it would be an excellent place to train especially for someone interested in research.
I think the "rankings" are not as important as the "fit" and mentorship you get from a program. Programs have very different focuses between HIV, global health, transplant, stewardship, epi, public health, med micro, bench research vs clinical research, etc. Also do you want a 2 year clinical track program or 3 years with more research; opportunities for an MPH or research degree, etc. One program "ranked" higher on the list may not offer as much for an individual's interest vs a program ranked lower on the list. Going to the program that's a better fit for your interest would offer more career opportunities than going to a program just because it's "ranked" higher.
Hi,
long time lurker, first time poster using an old high school email lol!
I called the California medical board before applying and was told I don't need the PTAL to apply to california programs this year. They are discontinuing the PTAL in 2020 so having it is just a formality for now. I had even called a few programs in California to confirm and they did inform me that the PTAL wasn't necessary. However, my nerves are getting the best of me!
I've gotten several east coast and midwest interviews yet silence from California programs so far. Do they still expect me to have a PTAL? Should I give them a call?
Definitely agree with the points that trichosporon made above. Rankings are notoriously riddled with bias in areas that don't matter in the context of training. However they can be an indirect representation of the resources that a program may have to allow you to, say, do research and work towards a K award. Even then, however, program ranking may not translate into your experience as a fellow (much like the spread of residency programs).
Contributing my 2 cents, I find that looking at a program's list of alumni is somewhat helpful in seeing what each program values and the types of people who selected to training in that fellowship program. Are the alumni working in academic centers? primary care? Did they stick around or did they go other places? Another possible crude measure of how "desirable" a program may be is whether people who trained at the program stay on to be faculty or did most people come from other places? (I admit this may be a poor measure in bigger named programs as some hospitals like to "hybridize" their faculty... ie they don't all train at one institution). I also like to read fellowship bios and their publications which can help me figure out whether my interests are in line with theirs. This is challenging however because most programs don't list this information (which can be a little concerning as well... what do they have to hide?). I also like to read CID, JID, JAMA and Lancet for articles of authors who share my interests. A one off is not as important as multiple authors with the same interest from the same institution. Again, another indirect measure of a good "fit" and "competitiveness" (and an indicator of what sorts of research/scholarly activities you can do while there).
I have found it helpful to talk to fellows who have recently graduated from these programs as they frequently will give you an honest answer and give you insight into issues that even at a historically great program would present challenges to you as a fellow in the next few years (chair leaving, hospital going under, program director indifference etc). All this being said, the name/reputation of a program does carry weight outside of the academic world.
Hopefully this is helpful! Perhaps not at all and I'm the only who does this... but it's served me well this far! Plus the research you do (like the examples above) drums up topics of interest that you can talk about during your interview day (e.g. Stanford asking which researchers you want to talk with/areas of interest you may have).
On a completely different note (and then I'll stop talking), does it seem like interviews are coming out more slowly this year? Or maybe there are less folks here on SDN posting... Obvi, we are still early in the game.
I agree with most of the things in this post.
I just completed an ID Fellowship in NYC this June. Happy to help with any advice.
Remember, ID is still a "buyers market." You will match, you will likely get your 1st or 2nd choice.
Figure out your own goals, passion, rather than using rankings or prestige to guide you in picking a program. Look at the fellows, are they happy? Where do they go after? Look at the faculty? Are they nuturing? Would they be good mentors? Would they open doors for a research pathway? Look at the sites you rotate at, and the patients you see.
ID is a great field and I am happy to see all of you applying. If you have clear goals entering the fellowship and the application field it will be alot easier down the road.
USC for University of South Carolina in Columbia.For anyone who got the 7/19 USC invite, was that for South Carolina or Southern California?
I sent in my dates available for Stanford but haven't heard back yet, have others had their dates confirmed yet? Just trying to coordinate!
thank you!!I got a California interview without a PTAL.