Sports medicine fellowship after EM

[EM2Sportsmed]

First of all, I'm baffled that there is no sports medicine thread. Moderators....can this please be generated?

I've been practicing for a year after completing EM and enjoy the emergency room quite a bit but absolutely hate the hours. HATE the hours. I really enjoy the MSK complaints and usually do all these procedures (closed reductions, etc) myself. I also enjoyed follow up with these patients when we worked in a follow up ortho clinic during residency. Unfortunately I don't really know any non ortho sports med docs and have a few questions.

1) Wouldn't a nonortho sports med doc essentially play the role of a PA? It seems many sports med docs work for an ortho group and I'm just curious how their roles are different from that of a midlevel. Why would an ortho group want to pay a doc salary when they could just hire an extra PA?

2) I know this is going to vary depending on practice type but what are some examples of sports med salaries. From my experience in EM, the salary calculators grossly underestimate the starting offers I received after finishing EM (in both rural and urban). According to some of the salary statistics, it seems like a huge pay decrease from EM. Saying that, I do value quality of life over salary (but am realistic and have hefty student loans) and am willing to take a salary drop to have regular hours.

3) Do any docs coming from a primary care sports med fellowship focus on procedures (spinal injections, prp injections, reductions, etc)?

Thanks!

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[EM2Sportsmed]

Anyone? :/

 

[galactus]

So I work both primary care and have a sports medicine clinic in ortho. Ortho has their own PA's. Difference is I do not check out every patient i see to the ortho's. I have my own continuity clinic, I do my own procedures, manage fracture care, and if I feel like there is something that surgically needs to be done, I refer to my ortho colleagues. PA's to my knowledge, have to check out the patients to the ortho attending.

I have seen EM/Sports med guys do both, but honestly I do not know their salary. The ones I know have a model of 2-3 clinic days, and 1-2 shifts a week. Mind you this is also in an academic setting, where they have appointments in both ortho and EM, so both departments were ok for them to do both.

There are sports med fellowships that concentrate on procedures that you mention. A good way to look is to browse through the list of fellowships on the AMSSM website.

Hope

 

[EM2Sportsmed]

Hi Galactus,
Did you choose to do both or was it more a factor of not being able to get enough sports business you had to keep your primary specialty?
Unfortunately it seems the programs geared for towards procedures focus more on PMR physicians, while EM/IM/FM are mostly eligible for the primary care sports med programs, which don't seem as procedure heavy unfortunately. Did you find this to be the case also?

 

[galactus]

Hi Galactus,
Did you choose to do both or was it more a factor of not being able to get enough sports business you had to keep your primary specialty?
Unfortunately it seems the programs geared for towards procedures focus more on PMR physicians, while EM/IM/FM are mostly eligible for the primary care sports med programs, which don't seem as procedure heavy unfortunately. Did you find this to be the case also?

I want to do both, and I found a job that allows me to. My schedule is full on both sides of the practice, and they feed each other. It's also nice to see healthier people in my primary care clinic! Also for the college I cover, I am the PCP for some of the coaches and athletic admin, so it's a great relationship.
I did not that the procedure heavy fellowships were geared towards PMR. The primary care SM docs I know of who do fluoro are FM trained. Unfortunately my training did not have fluoro procedures (which is fine by me), but I did have heavy event coverage experience (and other office based procedures).

 

[tygerguy]

I've been thinking a lot lately about the EM to SM track. I'm glad to see some of you guys here, and also surprised that this thread is so new. I'm glad to hear that at least one academic program has allowed a dual appointment in EM and Ortho. I haven't seen that at my institution.

 

[DoctorDrewOutsidetheLines]

I've been thinking a lot lately about the EM to SM track. I'm glad to see some of you guys here, and also surprised that this thread is so new. I'm glad to hear that at least one academic program has allowed a dual appointment in EM and Ortho. I haven't seen that at my institution.

I've been doing some googling...I can't seem to find that academic program. Care to share?

 

[Got Em]

Does anyone know of any procedural heavy FM sports medicine fellowships ? Not sure if this is correct, but I think most of them are PM&R based, but I heard it would be difficult for an EM resident to get one of those.

 

[Doctor4Life1769]

Lol, going from the ER to something completely different is going to be an uphill battle

 

[Got Em]

Lol, going from the ER to something completely different is going to be an uphill battle

I'm not sure I get this statement. There are 7-8 sports fellowship programs that are EM based. I was just looking for more procedural based programs, which these EM programs don't offer. FM based sports medicine programs take residents from FM, EM, IM, Peds, and PM&R. I heard that it was harder to get into PM&R sports med than FM based, so I'm looking for help in finding procedural heavy FM programs.

 

[galactus]

I'm not sure I get this statement. There are 7-8 sports fellowship programs that are EM based. I was just looking for more procedural based programs, which these EM programs don't offer. FM based sports medicine programs take residents from FM, EM, IM, Peds, and PM&R. I heard that it was harder to get into PM&R sports med than FM based, so I'm looking for help in finding procedural heavy FM programs.

Off the top of my head:
Utah, Edgewood, KY, JPS. All do training with fluoro.

I'm sure there are others.

 

[tygerguy]

I've been doing some googling...I can't seem to find that academic program. Care to share?

I'm not sure which program it is. Galactus indicated above that he knows some people at an academic institution that have that role, if I understood correctly.

 

[galactus]

I'm not sure which program it is. Galactus indicated above that he knows some people at an academic institution that have that role, if I understood correctly.

I sure do. They have dual appointments in the department of orthopedics and emergency medicine. They did their fellowship somewhere else though, as their current employer/institution does not have a PCSM fellowship.