Rheum with allergy/immuno or clinical&lab immuno

[fantasty]

Sooo, there are 3 year combined programs of rheumatology and allergy/immunology, which require (from the ACP website):

(a) at least 12 months full-time clinical rheumatology,
(b) weekly attendance for 18 consecutive months in a rheumatology ambulatory care program which must include continuity of patient care, and
(c) at least 18 months of full-time allergy and immunology.

Or... you can do clinical & laboratory immunology after a regular rheumatology fellowship (although it looks like its more common to do this after allergy/immunology).

Just curious - do any of you have opinions about these sequences? It seems to me that the part of immunology that I also thought was more fun is emphasized more in the clinical/lab one-year program than the regular two-year allergy/immunology fellowship. (Plus they get to play around with the cool ID tests, which are also interesting to me).

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[megsMS]

Do you mind to elaborate on where these programs are? I am interested in both allergy/immunology and rheumatology and didn't realize that there were some combined programs. I think that this would be perfect.

 

[fantasty]

I actually know very little about this - This was just listed on the speciality training page for the American College of Physicians (ACP). I tried to look in Frieda and the American College of Rheumatology and I couldn't find a way to search for programs. But, a simple google search yielded a lot of websites talking about the possibility (especially some clinical departments at some schools / hospitals seem have to combined departments anyhow). Although I did not fully review the details on each of these pages, it looks like UPenn, Wash U, Brig & Women's, Mass General, and a lot of other places offer it, so it might be more common than expected.

This kind of goes back to other posts over the last few months about exactly what do rheumatologists do, and what do allergists do. I haven't done electives in either of these, so I hoped that maybe some more experienced people could offer us some insight

The ACP page describes a little bit about the types of patients you see and the procedures you do in the various specialties, and that info was what made me think that I would enjoy rheumatology patients more, although the knowledge base of the clinical & lab immunology fellowship (1 year) would be really good to have.

 

[Strength&Speed]

great find dante. I am interested in both. I have thought about both, but each seems a bit somewhat limiting. (I like a broad range of things). Rheumatologists do interesting things with autoimmune patients, thats my favorite part. Allergists get lots of young people (as do rheum's to some extent) and have some interesting immunologic problems in addition to the usual and less exciting allergy desensitizations, etc. I think the two together would be an interesting combination where you get a nice variety but don't get complacent or bored; If you are into bench research in immunology, that would probably be enough to keep you going, but if you really like rheumatology---its really only one more year.

 

[fantasty]

Addendum -

Ok - i missed the part about the clinical & laboratory immunology that says that "Following training, the graduate should be competent to supervise an immunology laboratory." The rest sounds pretty cool, but I'm not sure that's a job function I want. Plus, there are only 11 programs in the country