Surgical oncology?

[Rezul]

How competitive are surgical oncology fellowships? Does the reputation of your residency program play a role in admissions to a fellowship?

Thanks!!

Rezul

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[droliver]

Oncology and Plastic Surgery are far and away the two most competative post general surgery fellowships. Surg Onc fellowships are pretty few in # @ just a handful of institutions. Most successful applicants have done a year or two in the lab & many of the fellowships also make you do more lab time during the fellowship. The "Big Two" for Surg Onc are MD-Anderson (Houston,TX) & Memorial Sloan-Ketering in Manhattan, and these are the two most competative training spots. Where you do you residency has a great deal to do with how successful you will be in matching @ those places as it tends to be a small club (we currently have 5 faculty who trained @ Anderson and 2 from Memorial).

 

[Rezul]

Thanks droliver for the information!

Do national rankings for residencies exist (like usnews)? If not, what general surgery residencies would you recommend?

Thank you!

Rezul

 

[droliver]

Rezul,

your welcome!

No ranking system exists (or prob. could exist) to quantify the difference between training programs. A lot of factors go into what makes a good program, some of which are easy to identify (access to facilities, patient population, technology) and some of which are more subtle (independence, personalities, faculty, location, needs of your spouse/family, morale).

If you desire subspecialty training after surgery, you are almost always better off @ University-based program with good name & prominent faculty. If you wish to do general surgery without subspecializtion, you can get fine training at any # of places, both Academic & Private programs.

I can't speak with great authority on many programs, other than a general kind of consensus you get among people about some of the larger programs that are around, but ultimately its just kind of gossip. I can say with firsthand knowledge, that I have very much enjoyed my training here @ the University of Louisville enough to be doing my fellowship training here next July. Its been a lot of fun here and I would recommend it to anyone who wants a superior education. Its also been a pretty steady pipeline if you're interested in ocology with 2 going to Memorial & 5 people having gone to MD-Anderson in the last decade (and with 1 or maybe 2 of my fellow chief residents likely to end up there after the Oncology match this fall)

cheers

 

[Rezul]

Thanks again!! Good info!

I will definitely look into University of Louisville. Right now, I think my first choice is NY Med for residency because of its location and proximity to my hometown. I still have a long time to decide though I guess its never to early to start researching.

Take care,
Rezul

 

[Hookworm]

How is the lifestyle and income for surgical oncology? Anyone has any opinion on this?

 

[mayostand]

Any further opinions on this? Lifestyle, competition for spots, etc? How about likelihood for academic vs. private practice after finishing?

 

[Pir8DeacDoc]

when discussing competitive fellowships let's not forget to throw Peds into that mix.

 

[ggx12]

Oncology and Plastic Surgery are far and away the two most competative post general surgery fellowships. Surg Onc fellowships are pretty few in # @ just a handful of institutions. Most successful applicants have done a year or two in the lab & many of the fellowships also make you do more lab time during the fellowship. The "Big Two" for Surg Onc are MD-Anderson (Houston,TX) & Memorial Sloan-Ketering in Manhattan, and these are the two most competative training spots. Where you do you residency has a great deal to do with how successful you will be in matching @ those places as it tends to be a small club (we currently have 5 faculty who trained @ Anderson and 2 from Memorial).

Plastics is post GS fellowship? I thought it was integrated

 

[Pir8DeacDoc]

it's both....

 

[Winged Scapula]

Any further opinions on this? Lifestyle, competition for spots, etc? How about likelihood for academic vs. private practice after finishing?

Hasn't changed since droliver posted that 3 years ago...Plastics has gotten even more competitive and Surg Onc is still tough to get into.

Surg Onc lends itself to a more academic environment whereas plastics can be practiced in both, albeit with somewhat different clientele (if you so desire).

 

[ggx12]

it's both....

can you explain please that. Does it mean that there are programs that require GS before entering and programs that are integrated, or that you can enter all programs either from start or after GS?

Thank you

 

[blue2000]

can you explain please that. Does it mean that there are programs that require GS before entering and programs that are integrated, or that you can enter all programs either from start or after GS?

Thank you

Essentially it's the first situation you described. If you have more questions about this, maybe you should head to the plastics sub-forum where this has been discussed extensively.

 

[Pir8DeacDoc]

This is a cut and paste from another thread. Hope it clears some of the confusion.

There are actually three models to get into plastic surgery..The first two are guaranteed right out of med school.


1. Integrated. As mentioned above you are under the direction of the PRS dept the entire time. They help schedule out your 3 GS years.

2. Combined: This is as mentioned above where your first three years are managed by GS. Once you are done with these three years you are rolled right over into the Plastics dept.

3. Traditional: This is the old faithful fellowship match. Here you do GS wherever you want. Then apply for the fellowship after 3,4,5+ years of Gen surg.

There are roughly 80 slots for the first two options straight out of med school and about 100 fellowship spots for those who have completed GS, ENT, Uro, ortho, etc. Both routes and therefore any route into plastic surgery is EXTREMELY difficult.