Surgical/cytopathology fellowships in Chicago

[KeratinPearls]

Can anyone in the Chicago-based residency programs (U of C, Northwestern, UIC, Rush, Loyola, etc) tell me a little about their surgpath and cytopath fellowships and job prospects post-fellowship?

Thanks.

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[pathchick09]

Im a resident at NW and I think all of our fellowships are quite good as well as flexible in order to suit your needs. In surgpath we have a breast fellowship, a GU fellowship and a general surgical pathology fellowship. We are currently trying to fund a GI-specific fellowship because we have a lot of GI specimens as well as a busy liver transplant service (I think this is happening in the next year or so). The breast fellowship gives you a LOT of experience as some days we have anywhere from 4-10 mastectomies/lumpectomies a day. All of the fellows are involved in presenting at tumor boards and our surgical pathology conferences. Our fellows are usually involved in teaching in the gross room for a couple of weeks (2-4wks) but the nice thing is they do not have to gross or take surgical pathology call. Our fellows are mainly involved in biopsy signout, consult cases, looking at in-house resection cases that are pertinent to their fellowship and attending the daily consensus conference.
We now have two cytology fellowships and both fellows are involved in presenting at IR/path conferences as well as colposcopy conference. They also teach residents using unknown slide sets while residents are on the cytology service. Cyto fellows look at many in-house cases as well as consults. Call for cyto usually entails staying after 5pm if there are any late FNAs, but it is usually not too late.

As for job prospects for our fellows, the previous 2 cyto fellows went into private practice (one in the Chicago-land area and one in Iowa). One breast fellow went into academics at Yale while one stayed on as faculty at NW. GU fellow went into private practice in NJ. General surgpath fellows (one went back to his home country in Europe, one is in private practice in Michigan and our current fellow has landed a job in MO). From what I've seen in the past few years here, all of the fellows have several job interviews and they have all ended up where they want to be (including the Chicago-land area). There has been a mix of academics and private practice as well. Hope this helps!

Can anyone in the Chicago-based residency programs (U of C, Northwestern, UIC, Rush, Loyola, etc) tell me a little about their surgpath and cytopath fellowships and job prospects post-fellowship?

Thanks.

 

[Art]

Im a resident at NW . . .

From what I've seen in the past few years here, all of the fellows have several job interviews and they have all ended up where they want to be (including the Chicago-land area). There has been a mix of academics and private practice as well. Hope this helps!

This information is just amazing, that everyone in the past few years has landed a job. Someone needs to tell them that the pathology job market is awful, and that they surely must be deluded that they ended up where they want to be. (I hear that sarcasm does not display well on the internet so be sure that you check for the subtle signs).

 

[cozmopak]

This information is just amazing, that everyone in the past few years has landed a job. Someone needs to tell them that the pathology job market is awful, and that they surely must be deluded that they ended up where they want to be. (I hear that sarcasm does not display well on the internet so be sure that you check for the subtle signs).

From talking to residents and private practice attendings around my area, I also gather that all of this doom and gloom in regards to the job market is not representative of the norm. There may be exceptions, but I'm not convinced that it's so bad out there. I worry that this internet banter is going to deter qualified students from applying. Although it seems as though pathology had a good year in terms of the quality of residency applicants.

 

[yaah]

I think the quality of jobs may be a bit less than in previous years (depending on where you look). There are definitely jobs out there, but a lot of them are non-partnership track positions within a partnership group. These are generally not great jobs, although they can be fine for some people. I don't really know how jobs like that work - if they like you, do they then put you on a partnership track? Or are you going to be an employee until you leave? And if so, why are some positions partnership track positions and others not?

 

[2121115]

I think the quality of jobs may be a bit less than in previous years (depending on where you look). There are definitely jobs out there, but a lot of them are non-partnership track positions within a partnership group. These are generally not great jobs, although they can be fine for some people. I don't really know how jobs like that work - if they like you, do they then put you on a partnership track? Or are you going to be an employee until you leave? And if so, why are some positions partnership track positions and others not?

Sounds like a pretty depressing situation.

 

[Path or bust]

Sounds like a pretty depressing situation.

Supply and demand. They can get away with that because there is someone else that will settle for less.

 

[path24]

Supply and demand is right. Big supply and no demand.

Who hires path residents??? Almost no one.