Question about fellowships, ID, Rheum

[Peds882014!]

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Hi all,

Just started 3rd month of intern year and had some questions about fellowships specifically ID and Rheum

1. How is the fellowship interview process different from the residency one? Is it more stressful than residency interviews?

2. I'm at a pretty big solid program out in the Midwest. I'm interested in going out to one of the coasts as I want to live out there again as I spent most of my life in the Midwest and was out East for college and have families and friends out on both coasts. Is there a regional bias during fellowship interviews where they wouldn't even look at someone coming from the midwest?

3. I started on ID and really liked it. I do rheum later in the spring. How competitive are those to match into?

Any advice would be appreciated, thanks!

 

[BigRedBeta]

Hi all,

Just started 3rd month of intern year and had some questions about fellowships specifically ID and Rheum

1. How is the fellowship interview process different from the residency one? Is it more stressful than residency interviews?

2. I'm at a pretty big solid program out in the Midwest. I'm interested in going out to one of the coasts as I want to live out there again as I spent most of my life in the Midwest and was out East for college and have families and friends out on both coasts. Is there a regional bias during fellowship interviews where they wouldn't even look at someone coming from the midwest?

3. I started on ID and really liked it. I do rheum later in the spring. How competitive are those to match into?

Any advice would be appreciated, thanks!

1) Fellowship interviews themselves are longer and more in depth than residency. They are also rather variable. Whereas in residency you were pretty sure you were going to see morning report, get a tour, interview with the PD, the chief residents, a faculty member or two and have lunch with other residents and then be done, fellowship interviews typically far more interviews with faculty, and the questioning is much more in depth- much more about your interests, research, and career direction.

As a peds fellowship candidate though, I think its on the whole less stressful since at the absolute worse, if you were not to match, you still have job options. And on the whole peds fellowships are NOT competitive at least in the sense that everyone usually (though not always) gets a position somewhere. That is more true in ID or Rheum, as compared to say Cardiology. Compared to residency I think the stress, often shared with your classmates, the match is much more stress inducing.

2) I don't think there is much bias towards a specific region, and while I believe it to be extremely unlikely, there is always the chance that one particular fellowship will hold such a bias. Your program will speak for you in a lot of ways. People within the field will know about the respective program at your hospital - at a minimum in some sort of general sense if not anything more specific. Reputation within ID or Rheum will likely matter more than the larger overall reputation of your residency.

3) http://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uplo...gram-NRMP-Results-and-Data-SMS-2014-Final.pdf
This is the match data from last year which should help you see the competitiveness more clearly.