Seeking an advice on entering pain medicine from occupational medicine

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occpain

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Hi, I am a recent graduate from occupational medicine. I am currently doing occupational medicine as an attending and I am a few years out of my residency.

I have become interested in pain medicine as I want to enter a more procedural field and I have heard of some of my occupational medicine colleagues (without board certification in other specialties) entering ACGME accredited pain medicine fellowships which has prompted me to look further into how to enter the field of pain medicine.

I wonder what could be a way for me to gain clinical experience or even observership/research experience in pain medicine for a LoR. I was thinking of contacting my prior residency or my medical school to see if they can give be an exposure but I would like to see if there might be other options.

Also, I wonder how board certification works for my specialty as my specialty is not one of specialties that are eligible to be board-certified under ABMS.

I would greatly appreciate an advice on how to gain some exposures in pain medicine as someone out of medical education and it would be thankful for someone to have words on how to prepare for pain medicine fellowship application.

Thank you in advance.
 
What is your primary specialty?
My primary specialty is occupational medicine (or occupational and environmental medicine) as stated above. It is a specialty under American Board of Medical Specialties. It recently separated from preventive medicine.
 
its not going to be easy.

most programs will only take applicants from recognized specialties, of which occ med is not one. anesthesiology, PMR, neurology, psychiatry.

you will need more than 1 LoR.

i would suggest contacting your residency program and med school to do some sort of preceptorship for some time, like a few months.


it will be hard for you to get board certified since your primary residency is not one of the recognized ones.


your best bet is to go back and do a PMR residency.
 
dont do a pm&r residency.

you may be able to get a fellowship slot.

you will be able to get a non-accredited fellowship slot. and some of those fellowships are very good.

you definitely need to do a little more leg work but for the love of god, dont go back and do another residency plus fellowship
 
its not going to be easy.

most programs will only take applicants from recognized specialties, of which occ med is not one. anesthesiology, PMR, neurology, psychiatry.

you will need more than 1 LoR.

i would suggest contacting your residency program and med school to do some sort of preceptorship for some time, like a few months.


it will be hard for you to get board certified since your primary residency is not one of the recognized ones.


your best bet is to go back and do a PMR residency.
I might have considered if I was in a residency and/or much younger.

Thank you suggesting reaching out to med school and residency for possible preceptorship.

dont do a pm&r residency.

you may be able to get a fellowship slot.

you will be able to get a non-accredited fellowship slot. and some of those fellowships are very good.

you definitely need to do a little more leg work but for the love of god, dont go back and do another residency plus fellowship

I am probably too old to withstand the rigor of a second residency.

I am also considering non accredited ones as long as I can get the same compensation in private practice.

I see some NASS fellowships but I wonder if that is a viable option for me since most seem to exclusively take PM and R.


Reach out to this doc
Thank you for the suggestion
 
NASS fellowships are supposedly primarily for PMR.

i doubt you are too old to do a second fellowship. you said you were only out of residency a few years?

i did a second residency age 42. one of my med school classmates was 40 (had done 10+ years as a veterinarian).


you should talk to those occ med docs who got in to some ACGME program about which programs they got in to.
 
Hi, I am a recent graduate from occupational medicine. I am currently doing occupational medicine as an attending and I am a few years out of my residency.

I have become interested in pain medicine as I want to enter a more procedural field and I have heard of some of my occupational medicine colleagues (without board certification in other specialties) entering ACGME accredited pain medicine fellowships which has prompted me to look further into how to enter the field of pain medicine.

I wonder what could be a way for me to gain clinical experience or even observership/research experience in pain medicine for a LoR. I was thinking of contacting my prior residency or my medical school to see if they can give be an exposure but I would like to see if there might be other options.

Also, I wonder how board certification works for my specialty as my specialty is not one of specialties that are eligible to be board-certified under ABMS.

I would greatly appreciate an advice on how to gain some exposures in pain medicine as someone out of medical education and it would be thankful for someone to have words on how to prepare for pain medicine fellowship application.

Thank you in advance.

Our group employs an occ med doc who is primarily non-interventional but has picked up some interventional training along the way. PM me.
 
personally a believer in formal pathway of anesthesia to pain fellowship and boarded in both
 
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