ortho oncologist

[corona 247]

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I stumbled upon this fellowship possibillty thru a friend who just finished an ortho rotation who had an ortho oncologist. Does anyone have first hand info on the life of a ortho oncologist? What type of common surgeries to they do; how many fellowship programs are out there? are they competive relative to the other fellowship programs? How complex are the surgeries (i heard there nice reconstruction procedures)
Anything else would be much appreciated.

 

[Wahoos]

Ortho Onc is a great field. You get to follow your patients and have a big impact on their lives. There are only a handful of Onc fellowships for Ortho residents in the Country, majority of them are located in major academic centers. You will get to do big complex operations/reconstructions to small biopsies. You also get to work with a team of oncologists, pediatricans, internists, rad onc physicians, etc. However, when you come out and look for jobs, your options are somewhat limited in terms of locations as there are only so many places that will hire ortho onc trained docs.

 

[corona 247]

Thx wahoos. I appreciate the input. Do you know how long the fellowship is? Is it difficult to get a spot?

 

[abbaroodle]

.

 

[sscooterguy]

Per our ortho onc guy, there was ONE total Ortho onc fellow this last year. There are plenty of programs, but none fill. This is due to a few things from his opinion:

1. Lowest paying of all ortho specialties
2. over worked underpaid life style.
3. can be frustrating...because of the paucity of soft tissue tumors, large studies are almost impossible, so many treatment decisions are made from extrapolating from other types of tumors or by tradition alone. it can also be frustrating because treatment depends VERY much on where you are, again because of tradition (certain places always use radiation for certain tumors, others never do, etc)
4. again, because of paucity of tumors, its hard to get the experience needed. the other day, i scrubbed a case in which our ortho onc guy told me there would be 3 of these types of tumors in the nation this year, and this was one of them.

The nice thing about ortho onc is that the community is so small, they all know eachother, and consult each other. On that case (of one in three in the nation), he was able to call up the surgeons who had done a few before. Also, because virtually no one is going into ortho onc, the need is extremely great. We get referral cases all the time from community orthos that biopsied when they shouldn't have...costing the patient an extremity, when they could have had a tumor resection. And as a final good/bad thing, it is very academic. Many chairmen/women are onc's, if thats what you want to end up doing.

good luck

sscooterguy

 

[corona 247]

Thx for the replies.

I am curious to know if ortho oncs, because of the paucity of tumor pathology, can/do supplement their income by also doing other types of ortho work, ie trauma, fractures etc.

 

[sscooterguy]

Thx for the replies.

I am curious to know if ortho oncs, because of the paucity of tumor pathology, can/do supplement their income by also doing other types of ortho work, ie trauma, fractures etc.

The ortho onc guy at my hospital is so swamped with work that he does only onc. I think this is true of many if not most practices. Even with the paucity of tumors, the paucity of ortho onc's is even greater, so they are generally busy. However, most orthos I know practice some general ortho unless they are very specialized at specialized centers (shoulder, hand, etc). So yes, you can and especially in smaller practices are expected to supplement your life, income, intellectual curiosity with general ortho, at least in the midwest. I have less experience in larger cities with larger ultrasubspecialized practices.

sscooterguy