residency, clerkship, internship, and fellowship?

[FSUMED]

Ok...I know this may sound dumb, but could somebody distiguish between a residency, clerkship, internship, and fellowship? Are they all the same? Or are just some of them the same? I am pretty sure a residency isnt a fellowship, but the other 2 confuse the hell out of me.

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[pcl]

As I understand it:

Clerkship, M3 & M4 - your clinical rotations.

Residency - The X number of years immediately after medical school where you are getting your "postgraduate" medical education. Varies by discipline.

Internship: The first year of residency. I think you must complete internship to become a licensed physician??? But someone please correct me if I am wrong.

Fellowship: Additional specialized training after you complete your residency. i.e. One might complete an IM residency (4 years) and then do a Critical Care fellowship (1-2 years). After you complete both, you can be board eligible/certified in both. If you only do the IM residency, you can only be board certified in IM, not CC.

Laura

 

[Medic171]

Also be aware some D.O.s actually do an internship before residency, not just another name for first year residency.

 

[doc2003]

but then their residency is most often one year shorter so the internship can be considered the first year of residency training

 

[drsmilez]

I was wondering the same thing.... Let's say I wanted to do peds...I'd do a residency in peds, then do I need a fellowship?

Thanks

 

[Mango]

You would only need to do a fellowship if you wanted to become some kind of pediatric specialist. Some examples would be Critical Care, Neonatology, Allergy/Immunology, neurology, etc.

 

[tcutler]

DrSmilez,

For general pediatrics: 4 years med school + 3 years of peds residency and you are finished unless you want to further sub-specialize.

Peds cardiology, hematology, etc require several more years of fellowship training.

Peds surgery requires a regular surgery residency followed by peds fellowship training.

For peds emergency medicine, some programs allow a general peds residency followed by an EM fellowship. Some require an EM residency followed by a peds fellowship.

For the last word on board certification requirements for any medical specialty, look for the web site of the certifying board.

The American Board of Pediatrics is at
http://www.abp.org/Welcome.htm


------------------
Todd Cutler, MS1
UT Southwestern

 

[Pathologist]

Does anyone know the breakdown for forensic pathology? Thanks =)

 

[GreatPumpkin]

Of course someone does. THE GREAT PUMPKIN, he know path.

Forensic path is a one or two year (dep. on the indiv. program) fellowship. You do it after your path residency. But, it is a little more complicated than that. Thanks to the "wise" people at the College of American Path, to become board certified in path, you have to complete a 4 year residency and have an extra year in medical training. Most people do this extra year like another path residency year. But, some do a regular internship first, then go into path residency and that counts as well. Sometimes, even research can count as this 5th year. But, the real kicker is you can do your fellowship your during your 5th year. But, they say you cannot "double dip" and use the fellowship year as the 5th year and use it as a fellowship year. Ok, I know you are probably totally confused, so here is an example.

1st-4th year as a path resident
5th year as a forensic path fellowship in a one year program.
Take the path boards. Oops. can't take the forensic path boards without doing another year somewhere.

OR

1st year surgery intern
2nd to 5th year path resident
Path boards

OR
1st to 5th year in path residency
Path Boards
Forensic path fellowship
forensic path board

Hope this explains this total mess. Let me know if there is anything else.

Oh, one more thing this is based on getting boarded in Anatomic Path as well as Clinical Path. Which is not necessarily needed if you are going into Forensics. But, doing both is a wise decision if you ever want to work privately.

Wow.

 

[Pathologist]

Thanks, Great Pumpkin! Are you planning to do a forensic path fellowship?

 

[GreatPumpkin]

Probably not, I couldn't stand working for the state or county. To much politics and red-tape. Not to mention very big pay descrepancy between forensics and private surg path. I do enjoy forensics. But, am more likely to work in a community hospital as a general surg path/clin path doc. I did a rotation here in VA in the medical examiners office. Very cool rotation. Dr. Fiero is the Chief ME, she is the person the books by Patricia Cornwell are based on. (AKA Kay Scarpetta)