Peds GI Fellowship

[khadija]

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I'm a first year resident. I recently finished a GI inpatient rotation and really loved it. Now I'm considering doing a GI fellowship. But I haven't experienced outpatient GI yet, and have been told that it can get quite boring (lots of constipation, etc). Also, I know that peds subspecialties in general don't pay very well. So I don't know if its worth doing another 3 yr of fellowship training for very little increase in pay. Any GI fellows or attendings here that can give me some input?

 

[Stitch]

I'm not GI, and consider the colon a disgusting place, but can offer some insight. GI is one of the better paying sub specialties because there are a lot of billable procedures. It's hard to give exact numbers because salaries vary so much from institution to institution, private versus university, etc. It's safe to say that you'd make more than a general pediatrician.

A good portion of GI is outpatient stuff and a fair amount of that is constipation. You don't have to love constipation to do it, but if you really can't stand it, then you need to reconsider. That said, there is LOTS of other pathology to be seen: Crohn's disease, UC, liver transplants. I think to truly be a hepatologist and be in charge of transplants and such it takes an additional year, but please ask a GI attending about that specifically.

 

[Valentine Mott]

I agree that compensation is highly variable from region to region, institution to institution, but one would be surprised with the financial returns of some pediatric subspecialties compared to those of generalists.

I am not an economist or financial analyst, but this one study shows that only three subspecialties have greater financial return than general pediatrics.

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/127/2/254.short