Skipping Fellowship

[ilovecorvettes]

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I'm seeing more of my colleagues across the country skip fellowship and immediately land jobs. Are fellowships necessary in this market anymore? Almost seems like a waste of time at this point given the market.

 

[MadRadLad]

Not necessary to get a job. Necessary to get some jobs. Depends on your personal goals and the location you want to work.

Immediately landing a job is not something to brag about in this market. Anyone can go grind for a tele company or struggling PP making under $30 an RVU. Details of the job matter a lot and if you are in a competitive location you will be competing with a lot who do have a fellowship. If you have connections, it may not matter.

 

[guytakingboards]

I agree with MadRadLad. The market is still hot. You'll get a job without question.

Depending on the group and/or your personal goals, being fellowship trained may or may not be necessary. However, few people I know regret being subspeciality trained. Furthermore, most newbs I've found appreciate having 'something' that they know they're good at. At the beginning, you might not be fast. You might not be good at general. You might not know where the procedure room is or how to put in orders. But put a subspecialty case in front of a subspecialty trained rad and that's at least a comfort zone for them.

 

[Cognovi]

It's not a waste of time to get good at what you do

 

[MadRadLad]

Agree that there is something about being a subspecialist that doesn't always show up in the numbers. As a non-fellowship rad in some places you might end up grinding a lot more plain films and slinging barium while the fellowship trained guys snap up the high RVU brain and prostate MRs. With tele nowadays you can moonlight as a fellow too and the opportunity cost is a lot less than it used to be. Don't pick a workhorse fellowship.

Some groups who cover tertiary care centers may also be asked by clinicians to have fellowship coverage. I have seen this in MSK and Neuro especially. While this may not matter for an experienced rad who has done MSK and knows the referrers, it's a marketing thing for some groups to be able to offer MSK-trained reads for the local ortho clinic.

If you already know the location/group you want to be with and they don't care about your fellowship you are fine. If it comes to changing jobs it will limit your opportunities a bit, mostly in bigger markets and subspecialized groups.

 

[Rubix8]

Jumping on to ask: how are the online “fellowships” regarded? For example those offered by MRI online? Seems like a more efficient and focused way to get practice in high yield subspecialty areas without giving up a year of attending salary.

 

[guytakingboards]

Jumping on to ask: how are the online “fellowships” regarded? For example those offered by MRI online? Seems like a more efficient and focused way to get practice in high yield subspecialty areas without giving up a year of attending salary.

To caveat, I've never done one of the online "fellowships" but my understanding is they're something much closer to "additional training" than an actual sub-specialty fellowship. i.e. limited to very limited scope.

I'd liken it to an ACR boot camp. It's certainly going to help you in that particular area but no one is going to mistake you for a sub-specialist.

To put it frankly, if someone claimed on their CV an online fellowship as a legitimate sub-speciality training I would laugh and strongly question their judgement.