Specialize starting early

[milkchocolate]

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Hello,

I'm a P1 thinking about doing a residency. I want to get a head start in picking a field to specialize in, but I feel that I will not know for certain until I finish most of my pathology-based classes. I feel that this may be late in my school career in finding good research to get my hands into since I do want to start gaining experience my first year (since I have absolutely NO experience in research whatsoever).

I thought maybe I can start by picking a "hot" field and formulate my passion from my good/bad experience in that field. From all of your experiences, what are great areas within pharmacy residencies that are in demand? Areas like Pharmacogenomics or Infectious Disease are new and up and coming areas....but are there many opportunities for me beyond that to practice specifically in this field later on?

Also, what specialties are considered the "hot" ares with lots of opportunity for growth and demand? Where can I find more info on this besides the residency accreditation sites?

Thanks for any help 🙂

 

[Sparda29]

You can't pick your specialty this early. You may think you like it based on classroom work but then you might hate it when you see it on your experiential rotations. Or vice versa.

 

[milkchocolate]

Also...biased answers from your own (or friend's) personal experiences are most definitely welcome 🙄

 

[milkchocolate]

You can't pick your specialty this early. You may think you like it based on classroom work but then you might hate it when you see it on your experiential rotations. Or vice versa.

so what do I do if I want to start researching early? I want to tailor my skills in a specific area to make myself competitive in that area by starting early.

 

[deleted205891]

Don't worry about it, you have time. If you really want, pick a specialty, research it, think about whether you like the classes about it, and then be open to change your mind. Also, I'd recommend doing your rotations in a variety of different experiences. Don't worry, the wide majority of people don'tknow what they want to do on the first day o P1 or P2 or sometimes even P3.

BTW our ID prof told us there are no ID jobs now.

 

[KARM12]

I think it is good to investigate speciality areas early on. I think it is also important to keep an open mind and get as many different experiences in mind. I always had an interest in ID...but also considered specialty areas such as oncology, amb care, drug infortmation, pediatrics... Turns out ID was still the best fit for me. I took electives and rotations in these areas and it really helped me decide, along with the experiences as a PGY1 resident. I think you don't really need to decide until during your PGY1 year, but it is good to have an idea of what you like so you can get some experience to make sure.

 

[KARM12]

BTW our ID prof told us there are no ID jobs now.

I think ID is no different than any other specialty these days. There are jobs, they just may not be in large academic medical centers. The only specialty that I've heard of with a surplus of PGY2 trained residents was critical care.

 

[pharm B]

I wouldn't try to make a decision P1 year, period, due to the lack of real "pharmacy" exposure during that year. BUT, if you can score a good internship over the summer, it can be quite the eye opener.

Granted, this is my own experience, but I think you'd benefit:

I had a hospital internship this summer, and it was a structured internship where each week we would follow a different department (ID, Hem/Onc, General Peds, IM, etc).

On each week's rounds, the docs would ask me questions, and it really made me feel involved, especially in a clinical route. Thanks to that exposure, I've narrowed my own choice of specialties down to two (onc and peds), but I do so with at least a few months of exposure, and many hours of conversation with people in both fields.

Get that internship.

 

[R2pharmD2]

I wouldn't try to make a decision P1 year, period, due to the lack of real "pharmacy" exposure during that year. BUT, if you can score a good internship over the summer, it can be quite the eye opener.

Granted, this is my own experience, but I think you'd benefit:

I had a hospital internship this summer, and it was a structured internship where each week we would follow a different department (ID, Hem/Onc, General Peds, IM, etc).

On each week's rounds, the docs would ask me questions, and it really made me feel involved, especially in a clinical route. Thanks to that exposure, I've narrowed my own choice of specialties down to two (onc and peds), but I do so with at least a few months of exposure, and many hours of conversation with people in both fields.

Get that internship.

You've pretty much described my plan. I'm a P1 thinking residency, but I know that it's sort of silly to decide on something like a PGY2 without seeing what's out there first. My COP offers an ongoing internship somewhat similiar to what you've described that we can apply for after our first year that I'm definitely aiming for.

I'm leaning towards a PGY2 in infectious diseases at this point, although like I said that's still very much subject to change. We have our antibiotics course first semester so I'll have a little bit better of an idea by December if ID is something I want to take a serious look at later on or not.

 

[delano2000]

You've pretty much described my plan. I'm a P1 thinking residency, but I know that it's sort of silly to decide on something like a PGY2 without seeing what's out there first. My COP offers an ongoing internship somewhat similiar to what you've described that we can apply for after our first year that I'm definitely aiming for.

I'm leaning towards a PGY2 in infectious diseases at this point, although like I said that's still very much subject to change. We have our antibiotics course first semester so I'll have a little bit better of an idea by December if ID is something I want to take a serious look at later on or not.

I'm assuming that is not a part of the therapeutic series though. That's a little early to be diving in depth in ID. Ours is not till 5th semester (i'm sure it varies with schools). I have an interest in ID, Onc, Peds and Transplant but I'm definitely keeping my options open. I'm sure that list will narrow down as time goes on.

 

[R2pharmD2]

I'm assuming that is not a part of the therapeutic series though. That's a little early to be diving in depth in ID. Ours is not till 5th semester (i'm sure it varies with schools). I have an interest in ID, Onc, Peds and Transplant but I'm definitely keeping my options open. I'm sure that list will narrow down as time goes on.

Definitely. I don't know how much detail we'll ultimately go into this semester, but thus far everything has been pretty superficial.

 

[xiphoid2010]

ID wise, I will echo what Karma said. There were many openings across the country when I was looking just few months ago, maybe not in some big 900 bed university hospital, but they are there. Larger and more metropolitan the institution, the more likely they will require PGY-2. With a PGY-1, there were no opening in Ohio, but I was able to land a hybrid ID/management position in a small hospital in a large city in Texas. So the possibilities are there if you are willing to go where your career takes you.

P.S Oncology is pretty hot right now. Had a much easier time getting offers for that than ID, but ID was my top choice. By the time you start your residency, you should have a pretty good idea what you want to do, and focus your PGY-1 residency elective months into 1-2 specialties. I think that's will help you finding a job than having having just 1 month in each. Disregard that if you are doing PGY-2.

 

[R2pharmD2]

ID wise, I will echo what Karma said. There were many openings across the country when I was looking just few months ago, maybe not in some big 900 bed university hospital, but they are there. Larger and more metropolitan the institution, the more likely they will require PGY-2. With a PGY-1, there were no opening in Ohio, but I was able to land a hybrid ID/management position in a small hospital in a large city in Texas. So the possibilities are there if you are willing to go where your career takes you.

P.S Oncology is pretty hot right now. Had a much easier time getting offers for that than ID, but ID was my top choice. By the time you start your residency, you should have a pretty good idea what you want to do, and focus your PGY-1 residency elective months into 1-2 specialties. I think that's will help you finding a job than having having just 1 month in each. Disregard that if you are doing PGY-2.

Thanks for the info. I wasn't aware that a specialist position without a PGY2 was a realistic option for a new grad, even at a small hospital.

 

[xiphoid2010]

Thanks for the info. I wasn't aware that a specialist position without a PGY2 was a realistic option for a new grad, even at a small hospital.

Yeah, they are there, just in more remote areas. One place I interviewed at was a 100 bed community hospital in Tennessee, the town had ~100K people. The newly approved clinical pharmacist position will be to round both ICUs, ED, and internal med. I figured that's about working up 60 patients a day and decided I will likely get somebody killed, so didn't go for that. The Vegas VA was also expanding their out-patient oncology service and 3 months of onc during PGY-1 was also good enough for them. When interviewing for my currently job, they had the chief physician there, and we went back and forth on antibiotic use and dosing. When he asked me what Abx I would recommend for stenotrophomonas, I answered bactrim first and Timentin as the fall back, he nodded to my boss and that was good enough.

But yeah, these more remote places are still willing to take on a PGY-1, especially if you were a hospital intern, focused your PGY-1, and was able to clearly communicate the clinical knowledge you learned during the interview.

 

[milkchocolate]

Very interesting. I thought about oncology as well since my school also offers quite a few Nuclear Pharmacy electives, which is pretty neat.

Do you know if particular residences prefer students looking for a specific type of residency? For example, if ID is already "saturated" would they prefer someone going into Oncology or Genomics? And which hospitals specialize in ID? ...Rather, where can I find out what hospitals specialize in what areas?

 

[xiphoid2010]

Very interesting. I thought about oncology as well since my school also offers quite a few Nuclear Pharmacy electives, which is pretty neat.

Do you know if particular residences prefer students looking for a specific type of residency? For example, if ID is already "saturated" would they prefer someone going into Oncology or Genomics? And which hospitals specialize in ID? ...Rather, where can I find out what hospitals specialize in what areas?

PGY-1 is usually structured to have enough electives to make you "well rounded". Your areas of preference won't matter unless its totally off, e.g . want to go into oncology but the site has none.

ID wise, you can start by looking up the residency directory for sites with ID PGY-2. Pick a few that interest you and some of the PGY-2 trained ID guys on this board.