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Post-sophomore fellowship
- Thread starter Concubine
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I wish I had the opportunity to do one; I spoke to a few people who had done it and they really enjoyed it. That said, if it's not something that you end up going in to it can be a unnecessary diversion that you may end up regretting.
Pros: 1. gets you lots of experience in path and puts you ahead of the curve of applicants when you interivew. 2. Gives you a unique perspective going into your clinical years.
Cons: 1. It's an additional year of med school and it is not needed to match in path. 2. It's another year loans build up - although this is less of an issue for you as it would be financially beneficial?
If I were you I would go for it, but I am not you. I think its usefulness/ advantage is different for different people/ families. And remember the people I met who had done one were the ones that ended up going on interviews for pathology, so my experience on the interview trail positively selected for people who enjoyed it to such an extent that they selected pathology for their future career.
Pros: 1. gets you lots of experience in path and puts you ahead of the curve of applicants when you interivew. 2. Gives you a unique perspective going into your clinical years.
Cons: 1. It's an additional year of med school and it is not needed to match in path. 2. It's another year loans build up - although this is less of an issue for you as it would be financially beneficial?
If I were you I would go for it, but I am not you. I think its usefulness/ advantage is different for different people/ families. And remember the people I met who had done one were the ones that ended up going on interviews for pathology, so my experience on the interview trail positively selected for people who enjoyed it to such an extent that they selected pathology for their future career.
I did a Pathology Rotation after my second year as a substitute for one of my Senior Selectives, since clinical experience was not required. 12 weeks of autopsy and surg path was all I needed to make the decision to go into Path. You don't need a whole year. Find a similar program, you will lose zero time from graduation, and knock 12 weekis off of M4 at the same time.
Back when pathology was a five-year residency, you could use that post-sophomore fellowship as credit for the fifth year. No longer.
IMO it is a waste of time. You don't need six-plus months of grossing and another six of "research" to decide whether pathology is right for you.
IMO it is a waste of time. You don't need six-plus months of grossing and another six of "research" to decide whether pathology is right for you.
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I don't think I would do it if I were you.
1. Doing a few months of pathology electives during year 3 and 4 of med school should give you more than sufficient exposure to make up your mind.
2. You don't need to do one in order to be a competitive match applicant.
3. Depending on your starting salary when you finally get to your "real," post-residency-and-fellowship(s) job, it would probably be more than the savings on your tuition would be worth to lose that year of potential income.
4. As you mentioned, you are an older, non-traditional student. You probably want to get on with your life already. I am someone who has gone straight through high school, undergrad, and med school so far (and I'm on the young side from skipping a grade), and even I wouldn't want to put things off another year.
1. Doing a few months of pathology electives during year 3 and 4 of med school should give you more than sufficient exposure to make up your mind.
2. You don't need to do one in order to be a competitive match applicant.
3. Depending on your starting salary when you finally get to your "real," post-residency-and-fellowship(s) job, it would probably be more than the savings on your tuition would be worth to lose that year of potential income.
4. As you mentioned, you are an older, non-traditional student. You probably want to get on with your life already. I am someone who has gone straight through high school, undergrad, and med school so far (and I'm on the young side from skipping a grade), and even I wouldn't want to put things off another year.
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I did do one, but I'm not sure it makes a ton of sense anymore. I do think it gave me an advantage going into residency for sure, but over time that advantage slowly disappears. I still would say I have a better knowledge base than many of my co-residents, but it's not really that big a difference. I will say it completely solidified my choice of pathology, but like others have mentioned doing some quality path elective time prior to applying should help you make that decision without taking the extra year. Plus, my autopsies from the post-sophomore year no longer count according to the ACGME (which is silly since many I performed on my own, how can they not count??). So, I guess I'm advocating against doing the year. Path residency is long these days (often 2 fellowships for many) so you're better off spending that year getting closer to graduating. Hope that helps.
Do NOT do it.
Pathology training now requires residency and AT LEAST 1 fellowship in order to get a decent job. Plus, even if you do this, you are not guaranteed a job in this current market which only promises to get worse.
Your best bet is to do something other than Pathology. I would run away from this profession like _________.
Do something where you will be IN DEMAND and hospitals/groups WILL COMPETE FOR YOU. As a pathologist, you will be an expendable tool and may have difficulty finding employment.
As we have seen on this board, there are unemployed, certified, fellowship trained pathologists who cannot get a job and have families to provide for. This is tragic and must be emphasized to all who enter at their own peril.
Pathology training now requires residency and AT LEAST 1 fellowship in order to get a decent job. Plus, even if you do this, you are not guaranteed a job in this current market which only promises to get worse.
Your best bet is to do something other than Pathology. I would run away from this profession like _________.
Do something where you will be IN DEMAND and hospitals/groups WILL COMPETE FOR YOU. As a pathologist, you will be an expendable tool and may have difficulty finding employment.
As we have seen on this board, there are unemployed, certified, fellowship trained pathologists who cannot get a job and have families to provide for. This is tragic and must be emphasized to all who enter at their own peril.
IF you end up going into pathology, the year could actually pay off. As other posters have mentioned, most of us are doing a minimum of 1 if not 2 or 3 fellowships these days. However, the trend I have seen is that residents at the top programs typically do only 1 subspecialty fellowship as they're generally pretty competent (and confident) in their general surg path skills. So, if it makes a difference between matching at a middle or lower tier residency and matching at a top notch institution, you may not end up losing a year. And your job prospects will be significantly enhanced if you can match in a top program. The fact that it will lower your med school tuition is one more benefit (assuming it doesn't increase your length of training and thus make you lose 1 year of attending salary plus more interest accumulating on the loans). So, I think it depends on where you stand academically and what type of applicant you are.
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It's not going to make you a much more competitive applicant than what you can do otherwise. PSFs are most useful for people who cannot decide what to do with their career or for people who are not doing pathology and want to get more exposure in it. When I did it I thought I liked pathology but didn't think I liked it enough to do it as a career, so I wanted to both try it out and get more familiar with it for my future career. Turns out I liked it and had a great year - but I had very little debt, did not have to pay tuition that year, received a stipend that covered my expenses, and was not married/engaged at the time so it wasn't a problem in any of those ways. It was one of the most educational years of my life because I had time to go into things in depth, completely focus, and after it went back to 3rd year rotations with all of this inside knowledge that helped me that much more.
It does put you ahead of the curve in terms of other residents when you start residency, but it pretty quickly evens out for those who work hard. If you know you want to do pathology then there is very little point to do an entire year. Do elective months and spend time there during other rotations (if possible). It may make you slightly more competitive in residency matching, but is probably outweighed by other things you can do (like having good references, having a strong interest in path, having good scores, etc).
Bear in mind that not all PSFs are created equal. When I did mine I was essentially a resident, and my entire PSF was AP + hemepath. I took call (AP only, with attending backup), signed out with attendings, grossed, did autopsies solo, all that. At other programs you can basically be a glorified observer or a glorified PA who grosses a lot.
So you have to weigh all of these factors. If you're going to do it primarily because you think it will make you a better applicant, then it probably isn't the best idea.
It does put you ahead of the curve in terms of other residents when you start residency, but it pretty quickly evens out for those who work hard. If you know you want to do pathology then there is very little point to do an entire year. Do elective months and spend time there during other rotations (if possible). It may make you slightly more competitive in residency matching, but is probably outweighed by other things you can do (like having good references, having a strong interest in path, having good scores, etc).
Bear in mind that not all PSFs are created equal. When I did mine I was essentially a resident, and my entire PSF was AP + hemepath. I took call (AP only, with attending backup), signed out with attendings, grossed, did autopsies solo, all that. At other programs you can basically be a glorified observer or a glorified PA who grosses a lot.
So you have to weigh all of these factors. If you're going to do it primarily because you think it will make you a better applicant, then it probably isn't the best idea.
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I TOTALLY disagree that it doesn't make you a more competitive applicant! I did one and my stats weren't that great otherwise. 206 on Step 1, 250 on Step 2, no research, barely in the top half of my med school class.
With the PSF I got interviews at almost EVERY place i applied for residency including Penn, Pitt, UVA, Michigan, UAB, etc. I don't think there is anyway I would have gotten all these if I was a straight up out of med school candidate
=)
Plus it was a lot of fun and a great learning opportunity. I say DO IT!!!
P.S. You don't have to be going into path either. My friend did the PSF also even though she wanted to go into medicine. She wanted to go into Heme/Onc eventually. It DEFINITELY helped her application as well and she matched at Wash U
With the PSF I got interviews at almost EVERY place i applied for residency including Penn, Pitt, UVA, Michigan, UAB, etc. I don't think there is anyway I would have gotten all these if I was a straight up out of med school candidate
=)
Plus it was a lot of fun and a great learning opportunity. I say DO IT!!!
P.S. You don't have to be going into path either. My friend did the PSF also even though she wanted to go into medicine. She wanted to go into Heme/Onc eventually. It DEFINITELY helped her application as well and she matched at Wash U
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I did a PSF last year and had a great time. The program treated me like a resident and it solidified my idea of going into pathology. Last week was the only time I've regretted it, because all of my friends were submitting their rank list and I was still on my surgery rotation.
We'll see next March if it was worth it. haha
We'll see next March if it was worth it. haha
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I don't see a down side for you. People often take a year off to do something completely unrelated to medicine to get instate tuition (in the state I trained anyway. HUGE difference between state and instate tuition). If you are thinking about Path and this would solidify your choice AND you'd save nearly 100k in loan balances, it seems like a no brainer.
Plus it looks good to the people on this board who would actually kill their own mothers to get $5.00 extra a case at a job (the majority) since it makes great financial sense; and the people on this board who do their jobs because they love what it is and did everything they could to be sure they were doing something they wanted to (a number that a high school shop teacher could still count on his fingers after a 60 year career).
It's another year you're protected from the big scary job market and can hope that old grizzled pathologists expire AND it's another year to develop your skills so that if you're not terrified of the big scary job market you'll have that much more confidence to land a good job when you're done.
The PSFs here are often better at putting information together because they are JUST out of basic sciences. If you get a place where you're allowed a lot of opportunity to do that I think the benefits in the 3rd, 4th year AND in your career could be immeasurable (intellectually.. not financially - so depending on what camp you're in.. still potentially worthless).
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Thanks for the replies! I decided to go ahead and do it. I realized some other hidden benefits that just solidified the choice for me. I understand the job market is crap right now, but who knows in 5-6 years when I'm done with residency/fellowship. Ultimately I would rather do something I enjoy than be stuck in a career that I do not (That's the entire reason why I quit my previous career).
