PICU Fellowships

[Stitch]

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I'm having so much fun as an attending, that I'm considering going back and doing a fellowship in PICU. I remember that there were some sites where you could see evaluations and feedback about specific residency programs (not the Freida site), and wondered if the same existed for fellowships. Anyone know how to get inside info on fellowships? My mentors from residency are quite helpful, but I wondered what was available on line. Any thoughts?

Specifically I'm looking at the Freida info on Duke CCM. It says average work hours per week is 65. I know PICU is mostly shift work, but that seemed wondefully low. Is it accurate? I have a friend who's getting killed doing a heme/onc fellowship and putting in 110 hours per week.

 

[edmadison]

I'm having so much fun as an attending, that I'm considering going back and doing a fellowship in PICU. I remember that there were some sites where you could see evaluations and feedback about specific residency programs (not the Freida site), and wondered if the same existed for fellowships. Anyone know how to get inside info on fellowships? My mentors from residency are quite helpful, but I wondered what was available on line. Any thoughts?

Specifically I'm looking at the Freida info on Duke CCM. It says average work hours per week is 65. I know PICU is mostly shift work, but that seemed wondefully low. Is it accurate? I have a friend who's getting killed doing a heme/onc fellowship and putting in 110 hours per week.

I am in the same position and have not found any good resources other than word of mouth. Several PICU attendings have told me that it really doesn't matter where you do you training as long as you get good exposure. Of course, if you intend on doing academic medicine, it certainly could make a difference. Basically, find a moderate-to-high volume program where the fellows seem happy!

Ed

 

[J-Rad]

I think you're going to have to go the word of mouth route. If the www.scutwork.com is the website you were speaking of the uselessness of that site speaks for itself. Most reviews are years old and by med students who did a rotation somewhere. Sites like that get dated fast.
I recall most of the PICU attendings at KD to be pretty far out of fellowship. There's a pretty fresh attending across the river (maybe trained at Denver) and a Navy fellow at Pitt (the Mecca), Vandy, and Utah, currently. I can see if I could russle up contacts about for them if you want (PM me). I can tell you second hand about where I train. Unfortunately I've got no scuttle on Duke, other than I loved the cardiology dept there.
I wonder if the 65 hours/week is average of on-service and research time.

 

[oldbearprofessor]

Specifically I'm looking at the Freida info on Duke CCM. It says average work hours per week is 65. Is it accurate? I have a friend who's getting killed doing a heme/onc fellowship and putting in 110 hours per week.

I can't speak to either PICU or Duke's program per se. However, I can say that an average of 65 hours/week over all three years is possible in NICU, PICU or cardiology. That is because you will be doing 12-15 months of in-patient clinical service and the rest of the time will be research. Different programs have different amount of on-call during research months, but if the program is honest about 80 hrs during the clinical months, then it's possible to average about 65 for the whole three years.

This reminds me to comment that, in picking PICU programs, like picking NICU programs, one has to pay attention to the research opportunities. I realize many if not most of those going into the field are not interested in long-term basic science research, but you have to do a project and spend time. It is possible to do something clinical, but long gone are the days of reviewing 100 charts to see the frequency of line sepsis, etc and calling that 2 years of research. Ask questions and find out what the last 10 or so fellows have done.

Finally, remember that PICU is relatively non-competitive and night-call responsibilities can depend on how many fellows match at any given program. So, take all information from current and upcoming fellows with that in-mind.

 

[J-Rad]

Also figure out what training grant they're under. They may be able to pay for a related advanced degree for you if you're so inclined. The work toward the advanced degree can often be used as the "scholarly activity". It's a pretty rough endeavor, but I know some of our Neo fellows, at least, are doing that.