Can someone comment on pain fellowships for anesthesiologists in general? How competitive are they to get into? How is the job market after graduation? How about earning potential compared to general anesthesiologists? How common are they? Any extra thoughts?
-
CycleTrack and SDN are teaming up to make medical school admissions more transparent and accessible! Read the announcement to learn how we’re supporting the future of CycleTrack’s free application-tracking tools .
pain fellowships
Started by echod
Get help with your application
Use all the free resources available to you from SDN: articles, guides, expert advising, forums discussions, and school research.
I don't have any numbers, but anecdotally the number of applicants last year shot up dramatically. I contacted a number of programs after I applied and they said they were swamped with apps, so apply early. I'm sure someone may be able to comment on how competitive it is this year.
From what I understand the job market is still good if you are anesthesia trained pain doc. I'll be searching after the boards in July, but the graduating pain fellows from my program didn't have any problems landing a job in the geographic region they wanted to go to. Can't speak to the earning potential, but I might have a better idea in a couple of months.
Feel free to message me with any other questions.
Sorry for the long list of questions, and thanks!
How long is your fellowship? How much research time is allowed? Do you think the clinical training was essential in you becoming a pain doctor? In other words, did you learn things during the fellowship that you could not have learned during residency? I am thinking that do we need an extra fellowship to learn how to prescribe opioids? Or maybe there are techniques that one learn in the fellowship such as how to place a transcutaneous electrical stimulator? Do you still plan on spending time in the OR with the gas machines once you finish fellowship? Is your fellowship mostly occupied by anesthesiologists or neurologists or internist? What is the difference between an anesthesiologists pain specialist vs. a neurologist/internist one?
