PICU job market

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Currently a resident considering doing PICU, but wanted to get a feel for what the job market is like for new grads after fellowship.

Is it difficult to find jobs on the coasts due to saturation? Is it strongly recommended to pursue more specialized training after fellowship? Do you anticipate any major changes to the job market in 5-10 years?

 

[BigRedBeta]

I think it's better than it was a few years ago, and it's way better than some other peds specialties (heme/onc).

If you have geographic limitations however, it's probably going to be a matter of luck regardless of how the overall market is. There's either a spot and you get it, or there is not.

Additional fellowships - CICU, Simulation, ECMO, clinical informatics, Neurocritical Care - are certainly ways to enhance your standing. However, at the moment, I think only Cardiac opens up a substantial number of positions that would have been otherwise been closed. Neurocritical care is still working to find it's footing to become more widespread. Anything else is certainly developing a niche, but you're probably just as likely to find a job that isn't directly hiring you for that expertise as you are to find one that is only interviewing people with that additional training.

 

[SurfingDoctor]

Currently a resident considering doing PICU, but wanted to get a feel for what the job market is like for new grads after fellowship.

Is it difficult to find jobs on the coasts due to saturation?

Yes

Is it strongly recommended to pursue more specialized training after fellowship?

Maybe. It's good to have extra skills that are useful to your employer, but CVICU is the only fellowship really worth pursuing if you just like taking care of patients. The rest of the pathways tend to be slightly more academic and academic centers are not going to be the places with the most jobs available. You should really only pursue them if you can really see yourself wanting to do those as a career longterm, not to just get a job.

Do you anticipate any major changes to the job market in 5-10 years?

In 10 years? Yeah, saturation. Right now you will have a hard time finding a spot that's urban. The field is also very young so it's not like there is some massive retirement on the horizon. In private, small PICUs in less urban areas, you will be able to find jobs. And then the CVICU market continues to be slightly better, though in 10 years that seems less likely. The birth rate is decreasing so the number of annual procedures will fall in turn.

 

[Lil'Sebastian]

I am currently in the midst of applying for my first PICU Attending job and I can say without hesitation that the job market is terrible. Please do not go into this specialty. I hoped that I would be a good applicant. I did PICU fellowship at a busy, well-regarded, “top 10” type PICU. I have faculty who love me and are willing to go to bat for me at a moments notice. I even took an extra year to do a second fellowship. I’ve applied broadly to both small community programs and large academic positions.

At this point, my list of applications/cold emails I’ve sent out is more than 30. From talking to my colleagues, there’s a lot of us in the same boat. There’s obviously bigger tragedies in the world than me having to take a Hospitalist or General Pediatrics job, but I hope this sheds some light on the current situation and helps everybody make an informed decision. If I’m truly isolated in this opinion and somebody has a completely different perspective, I’d be excited to hear it.

 

[SurfingDoctor]

I am currently in the midst of applying for my first PICU Attending job and I can say without hesitation that the job market is terrible. Please do not go into this specialty. I hoped that I would be a good applicant. I did PICU fellowship at a busy, well-regarded, “top 10” type PICU. I have faculty who love me and are willing to go to bat for me at a moments notice. I even took an extra year to do a second fellowship. I’ve applied broadly to both small community programs and large academic positions.

At this point, my list of applications/cold emails I’ve sent out is more than 30. From talking to my colleagues, there’s a lot of us in the same boat. There’s obviously bigger tragedies in the world than me having to take a Hospitalist or General Pediatrics job, but I hope this sheds some light on the current situation and helps everybody make an informed decision. If I’m truly isolated in this opinion and somebody has a completely different perspective, I’d be excited to hear it.

Nope, it’s about right. About 15-20 years ago, to get a PICU job, you basically needed a pulse. Then about 10-15 years ago, you needed a pulse, but you also needed a niche and marketability. Now, because 5-10 years ago, most junior attendings all graduated with the exact same skill set, which was mostly just a pulse again with no extracurricular skill set, no applicant is really different that any other applicant for jobs. Of course, there’s other external pressures that have expedited that trend in the past 5-10 years, but that’s the jest.

Of course, there are jobs. For instance, Shiners has been emailing me about a pediatric intensivist job for over a year. But new graduates don’t want that job.

 

[Oso]

Man, that sucks. I’m sorry. This was one of a few things I really considered in residency when deciding between NICU and PICU. The academic neonatology job hunt was tough, tougher than I thought it would be, but I know the PICU market is even tighter.

Best of luck to you