Preventive Medicine + Cards vs Preventive Cards

[UCSFdreamin]

---

Members do not see this ad.

If I am interested in public health and cardiology, is my best bet to go into a preventive medicine residency during IM (or combined with it) and then to do a general cards residency, or to skip the 2 years preventive medicine and go straight to preventive cards from IM? Or is IM/Preventive Medicine/Preventive Cards a more though combo that should be considered?

Will one or the other better prepare me for jobs later in administration (running a hospital system) or government?



Thanks for any clarification!!

 

[dragonfly99]

I think it is too long. Also, not sure that a combined IM/preventive medicine residency will give you enough critical care experience to succeed in the cardiology Match, especially if you only do 2 years IM (not sure what that residency entails).

There are a lot of cardiology fellowships where preventive medicine is not an area of emphasis, and they likely won't be trolling for candidates interested in that. However, there are a few places where they have some faculty interested in preventive cardiology. I would do a good IM residency, and try to do some related research (which will be hard while an IM fellow). Alternately, if you are currently a med student, try to get high grades during 3rd year and a pretty good Step 1 score, then match into one of those combined IM/cardiology residency plus fellowship programs - "short track". This would be 2 years of IM followed by 4-5 years card fellowship that includes 2 years of research. This avoids 1 year of IM residency,and it's generally nicer to be a fellow than a resident. Overall years of training will be the same or 1 year more, but this way you'll get dedicated time for your research.