Pain Medicine Fellowship from Family Medicine?

[patelfmpain]

Hello fellow medical students and soon to be physicians!

Match week is done and I accepted a position at a family medicine residency. I will be a DO. It is a new residency (i am the third incoming class) that serves rural areas. I have always been interested in anesthesia and pain management in general. So my questions are:

1. How difficult is it to obtain a pain medicine fellowship coming from a family medicine residency? Is it possible?
2. Does it matter that i am coming from a relatively new residency from a rural area?
3. What things can i do during residency to optimize my chances for a pain medicine fellowship position?

Hoping for any help, have not really found any concrete help or advice on other threads.

Thank you everyone!!

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[painfree23]

Hello fellow medical students and soon to be physicians!

Match week is done and I accepted a position at a family medicine residency. I will be a DO. It is a new residency (i am the third incoming class) that serves rural areas. I have always been interested in anesthesia and pain management in general. So my questions are:

1. How difficult is it to obtain a pain medicine fellowship coming from a family medicine residency? Is it possible?
2. Does it matter that i am coming from a relatively new residency from a rural area?
3. What things can i do during residency to optimize my chances for a pain medicine fellowship position?

Hoping for any help, have not really found any concrete help or advice on other threads.

Thank you everyone!!

If ur interested that much in anesthesia/pain as you stated, go to anesthesia residency

 

[Ferrismonk]

Not to be a downer, but without knowing your details, a family med residency in a rural area screams bad grades/scores. If you truly wish to do anesthesia or pain, I recommend you do your intern year then reapply to a different residency, usually PM&R or Anesthesia.

 

[Bostonspine]

Not to be a downer, but without knowing your details, a family med residency in a rural area screams bad grades/scores. If you truly wish to do anesthesia or pain, I recommend you do your intern year then reapply to a different residency, usually PM&R or Anesthesia.

Actually family medicine in a rural area tends to be more comparative as they are unopposed(no other residency tuft wars) and perform delivery’s, c-section, ER rotation and general surgery as the only residents. They will probably have better hands than the Bronx community program where they only go to clinic where they don’t do delivery and are rescued by sub specialist. No idea how that impacts pain fellowship competitiveness.

 

[Orin]

Hello fellow medical students and soon to be physicians!

Match week is done and I accepted a position at a family medicine residency. I will be a DO. It is a new residency (i am the third incoming class) that serves rural areas. I have always been interested in anesthesia and pain management in general. So my questions are:

1. How difficult is it to obtain a pain medicine fellowship coming from a family medicine residency? Is it possible?
2. Does it matter that i am coming from a relatively new residency from a rural area?
3. What things can i do during residency to optimize my chances for a pain medicine fellowship position?

Hoping for any help, have not really found any concrete help or advice on other threads.

Thank you everyone!!

1. It'll be hard. It's not impossible, but it's a very low probability event.
2. Yes. A new residency from a rural area likely means that your program director/institute will not have the connections or ability to support or plug you in for exposure to pain fellowships.
3. You'll want to reach out to pain doctors in your area about shadowing on your off time if there are any nearby. I would look at the state/regional pain societies and try to go to their meetings. In general, you need exposure to people that can support your application and to find a pain fellowship program director sympathetic to your application.

I would ask what you want to do when you're done. If you SOAPed into FM instead of anesthesia, I would agree you may want to struggle to swap into anesthesia. If you want to do FM, then you can do a lot of pain management without doing a pain fellowship. You can do some simple injections, joint stuff, and even things like botox for headaches if you want without doing a fellowship. If you want to be a Tim Deer (Timothy Ray Deer, MD, DABPM - The Spine & Nerve Centers), then that's a more difficult path/route.

 

[adiradirim]

I'd be interested to see what specific match rates are for each specialty. As someone who matched from psychiatry, I've been told my whole residency that the chances are low and the likelihood of a psychiatrist matching is low. However, I also know 6 psychiatrists who applied and matched into pain and 0 that applied and didn't match. I think people have just been told this but I've never seen the data if it even exists.

Some programs have an interest in multidisciplinary fellows but some have no interest in anyone who isn't Gas or PMR.

 

[SommeRiver]

Cofellow of mine was a psychiatrist and prior orthopedic surgery resident for 3-4 yrs (medically forced out of ortho).

 

[deleted472101]

I would reapply for anesthesia or PMR

 

[painfree23]

Cofellow of mine was a psychiatrist and prior orthopedic surgery resident for 3-4 yrs (medically forced out of ortho).

Medically forced out??

 

[ateria radicularis magna]

Hello fellow medical students and soon to be physicians!

Match week is done and I accepted a position at a family medicine residency. I will be a DO. It is a new residency (i am the third incoming class) that serves rural areas. I have always been interested in anesthesia and pain management in general. So my questions are:

1. How difficult is it to obtain a pain medicine fellowship coming from a family medicine residency? Is it possible?
2. Does it matter that i am coming from a relatively new residency from a rural area?
3. What things can i do during residency to optimize my chances for a pain medicine fellowship position?

Hoping for any help, have not really found any concrete help or advice on other threads.

Thank you everyone!!

I would guess this would be a case of needing:
1. Lots of networking
2. Research and publications in pain
3. Amazing board scores and leadership positions going forward
4. Applying to lots of pain programs

Seems like it would be a lot easier just to do an anesthesia residency, but I bet if you put your mind to it you can do it.

 

[SommeRiver]

Medically forced out??

Yeah

 

[RM38]

Medically forced out??

I had a friend that was doing general surgery and changed to Dermatology after he was discovered to have epilepsy. Was strongly advised by his neurologist to switch, so he did. He couldn't deal with potential of having a seizure mid surgery and disaster that could follow.

 

[lobelsteve]

I had a friend that was doing general surgery and changed to Dermatology after he was discovered to have epilepsy. Was strongly advised by his neurologist to switch, so he did. He couldn't deal with potential of having a seizure mid surgery and disaster that could follow.

Had a local Neurosurgeon do exactly that. Ling segment 6 level redo and add on fusion. Screws out, surgeon flopping like a fish. Backup came, closed skin, in brace. Off to ct to figure out where things were. Finished the case next day. The doc who seized moved away and might still be operating.

 

[thiswonthurtabit]

Medically forced out??

Bench probably dropped below 300lbs.