I did a quick search, but couldn't did anything that wasn't specialty specific. Anyways, I was just wondering what determines your competitiveness for a particular fellowship? Is it dependent completely on how you did in your residency, or do they factor in your medical school performance too? Thanks in advance.
So what determines competitiveness for fellowships?
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What program you are from, how you do on inservice exams, recs, your evals... Med school performance is only impt as far in how it contributes to the above.
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Fellowship for you is about cases. You want to see alot, do a bunch of procedures, and become proficient in your craft.
Fellowship for the fellowship is about research. They want you to publish, they want you to produce. They want you to do the work (the cases) but they can get anybody to do that, and frankly, the attendings are WAY better at it than you will be. So, to make yourself comeptitive for a subspecialty its research.
Having done research in the subspecialty field in medical school is huge. Whatever you can get done in residency is big. But the point of this research is two fold. One, it shows you know how research works so they can put you to work. Two, it lets you network. You get to regional or national meetings and you meet the people who are going to be selecting you. Its by making good impressions, doing the research, and getting good letters (i.e. contacts in the field) from your attendings that make the difference.
Board scores, inservices, and blibbity blah don't really matter. You made it this far, whether or not you're going to pass the boards is almost a sure thing. There is alot of truth to where you're coming from; the better the residency, the more likely you are to be competent, and the more likely they are to take you.
But most fellowships are small. Most are more interested in getting along with you and having you produce then your pedigree. This is also important because if you aren't already at Baylor or Duke, hearing "where you come from matters" isn't useful. You can't change where you come from, but you sure can change your interactions, networking, and research exposure. At the same time, if you know your goal is subspecialty, choose a program that feeds subspecialties, not those that make PCPs...
Fellowship for the fellowship is about research. They want you to publish, they want you to produce. They want you to do the work (the cases) but they can get anybody to do that, and frankly, the attendings are WAY better at it than you will be. So, to make yourself comeptitive for a subspecialty its research.
Having done research in the subspecialty field in medical school is huge. Whatever you can get done in residency is big. But the point of this research is two fold. One, it shows you know how research works so they can put you to work. Two, it lets you network. You get to regional or national meetings and you meet the people who are going to be selecting you. Its by making good impressions, doing the research, and getting good letters (i.e. contacts in the field) from your attendings that make the difference.
Board scores, inservices, and blibbity blah don't really matter. You made it this far, whether or not you're going to pass the boards is almost a sure thing. There is alot of truth to where you're coming from; the better the residency, the more likely you are to be competent, and the more likely they are to take you.
But most fellowships are small. Most are more interested in getting along with you and having you produce then your pedigree. This is also important because if you aren't already at Baylor or Duke, hearing "where you come from matters" isn't useful. You can't change where you come from, but you sure can change your interactions, networking, and research exposure. At the same time, if you know your goal is subspecialty, choose a program that feeds subspecialties, not those that make PCPs...
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Actually, fellowships are NOT privy to in-service exam scores unless you tell them yourself.
Who you know does matter, and the truth of the matter is that Duke and Baylor et al do not have a monopoly on important contributors to particular fields. Certainly, if you're at a major center, you'll have a better chance to meet "important" people in a wider breadth of fields, but if you have a particular specialty that you know you're interested, you may not meet the absolute biggest names (or be in a situation to build a significant relationship with them) if you're at a "big name" program.
For example, one of the lead authors in the study that proved the effectiveness of DMARDs in RA is the residency director at a good, but not "name", internal medicine residency in the Midwest. If adult rheum is your destiny...might be a good guy to know because every rheum fellowship is going to know him. If you're interested in Pediatric Critical Care or Peds ER...the lead author for the 2010 PALS guidelines is an attending at a very good, but not "name", peds residency in the South - another one of those people who, if they call on your behalf, gets people's attention.
I agree with the recommendation that if you feel that a specialty is in your future, if you're an M4 interviewing for residency, it's wise to take note of how many people they put into fellowships every year. For medicine, there are ~ 3000 fellowship spots in the Med Specialties Match...while there are about 5200 categorical IM spots. So if you see a program that doesn't consistently put at least 50% of their graduates into fellowship, it should make you wary of the program and their focus - it can still be a fantastic program, but it might not be what you're looking for. In peds, there are about 2500 categorical residency spots each year and roughly a 1000 fellowship spots, so again, being in that 30-40% range is a good sign that they'll be a good launching point.
As someone who is going into fellowship and at a residency program that has a fair number of fellowships that it sponsors, I think it's a good thing. One you're more likely to have faculty engaging in research projects who are used to mentoring trainees, you have fellowship directors - even if not in the field you're interested in - who can give you insight to what fellowship directors want, and you have the fellows themselves who can serve as role models and resources having been through the process. Obviously, you want to make sure your residency education is not compromised, so going to a place that has fellows but is not fellow-driven is important, but I think it's a very valuable component to have fellows around.
Who you know does matter, and the truth of the matter is that Duke and Baylor et al do not have a monopoly on important contributors to particular fields. Certainly, if you're at a major center, you'll have a better chance to meet "important" people in a wider breadth of fields, but if you have a particular specialty that you know you're interested, you may not meet the absolute biggest names (or be in a situation to build a significant relationship with them) if you're at a "big name" program.
For example, one of the lead authors in the study that proved the effectiveness of DMARDs in RA is the residency director at a good, but not "name", internal medicine residency in the Midwest. If adult rheum is your destiny...might be a good guy to know because every rheum fellowship is going to know him. If you're interested in Pediatric Critical Care or Peds ER...the lead author for the 2010 PALS guidelines is an attending at a very good, but not "name", peds residency in the South - another one of those people who, if they call on your behalf, gets people's attention.
I agree with the recommendation that if you feel that a specialty is in your future, if you're an M4 interviewing for residency, it's wise to take note of how many people they put into fellowships every year. For medicine, there are ~ 3000 fellowship spots in the Med Specialties Match...while there are about 5200 categorical IM spots. So if you see a program that doesn't consistently put at least 50% of their graduates into fellowship, it should make you wary of the program and their focus - it can still be a fantastic program, but it might not be what you're looking for. In peds, there are about 2500 categorical residency spots each year and roughly a 1000 fellowship spots, so again, being in that 30-40% range is a good sign that they'll be a good launching point.
As someone who is going into fellowship and at a residency program that has a fair number of fellowships that it sponsors, I think it's a good thing. One you're more likely to have faculty engaging in research projects who are used to mentoring trainees, you have fellowship directors - even if not in the field you're interested in - who can give you insight to what fellowship directors want, and you have the fellows themselves who can serve as role models and resources having been through the process. Obviously, you want to make sure your residency education is not compromised, so going to a place that has fellows but is not fellow-driven is important, but I think it's a very valuable component to have fellows around.
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I interview people for a very competitive Peds Anesthesia fellowship. To get an interview you need to have better than average (applicant average, not national average) in-service exam scores (we require them), USMLE scores, transcript, etc. You also have to have solid letters of recommendation. Where you trained is very important, not because it may be "famous", but because we have significant experience with many programs. Programs with a history of sending us clinically weak fellows, with glowing LORs, are shunned. Programs with a history of sending residents that fail the written board exam are shunned. Fellowship is a time to master your specialty, if you can't pass your written boards, you're a liability and we may have problems getting you a job. You also waste time studying material you should already know before you got here and not the material you're here to master. We get occasional residents rotating from another hospital in the area. They almost never get a fellowship offer as they are not very strong. Our "in house" residents take 1/2 the spots each year as they are usually very strong.
Once you are granted an interview, the LOR and the interview seal the deal. If I think I can work with you, you have reasonable goals and good letters, I recommend acceptance. If I don't think I want to work with you, or couldn't see you working here, and that happens, I don't recommend acceptance. Research is nice, and will help you stand out and get an interview, but it's not really anything I look for at interview time. Someone with a well thought out and reasonable research project that matches with one of our research faculties interests is very likely to be offered a position. Recruiting quality research faculty is very difficult. They end up with a bunch of deadbeat clinicians like me.
We are switching to a match process in pediatric anesthesia, it's causing a lot of problems. The old system worked very well for us. We kept 1/2 the spots out of the match for superlative and/or internal applicants.
Once you are granted an interview, the LOR and the interview seal the deal. If I think I can work with you, you have reasonable goals and good letters, I recommend acceptance. If I don't think I want to work with you, or couldn't see you working here, and that happens, I don't recommend acceptance. Research is nice, and will help you stand out and get an interview, but it's not really anything I look for at interview time. Someone with a well thought out and reasonable research project that matches with one of our research faculties interests is very likely to be offered a position. Recruiting quality research faculty is very difficult. They end up with a bunch of deadbeat clinicians like me.
We are switching to a match process in pediatric anesthesia, it's causing a lot of problems. The old system worked very well for us. We kept 1/2 the spots out of the match for superlative and/or internal applicants.
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