talk of making IM 4 yrs

[ckent]

Got this in my acp newletter. Really scary stuff, if they do make it four years, that would really stink for those of us who want to do a fellowship.

http://www2.einternalmedicinenews.com/scripts/om.dll/serve?article=aqm030361101c

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[KUB]

The article points out that those going into specialties would "peel off" after 2-3 years. Thank goodness. 4+3 years would suck!!!
K-

 

[SHOX]

This issue has come up many times in the past. I suspect that now that there are work hours resitrictions in place more and more educators will push for that extra year of training.

I had thought in the past that we would be splitting IM training, sometime in the 2nd or 3rd year, into Hospitalist (those interested in hospitalist jobs or fellowships) and Ambulist (those interested in outpatient medicine) tracks- both with the capability of being academic.

I completely agree that we should be training our residents in the areas of informatics, practice management, QA, and organizational leadership, however this needs to be weaved into the current training.

My two cents...

SH

 

[wallywhat]

Iread the article and recently discussed it with the director of medicine at my school. He has never heard of this actually being discussed at a conference and never thinks it would happen, since it would deter people from going into IM

 

[gdtrfb]

changing from 3 to 4 years would do so much damage to a field that is already struggling to attract good, american-trained candidates- a huge mistake it were to occur.

 

[eddieberetta]

This model is already followed in Canada. Here, people who want to do fellowships begin them after three years, but those who don't, do a fourth (usually junior consultant/chief) year and then become general internists.

I don't know enough to discuss the implications regarding quality of training (they do phone call, supervise junior residents like staff etc.) but it certainly does add additional credibility to "general internal" as "specialty" in itself... so there are certainly political benefits.

 

[Voxel]

Four years instead of 3 for general IM. Talk about painful... I don't think this is really necessary... And if you encourage/allow people who do fellowship out after 3 years instead of 4, then even more people will jump ship to renal, endocrine, etc, allergy (4 vs 5 years) instead of 4 in general IM. IMHO, this will have the effect of encouraging more people to specialize than before and there will be less trained general IM docs. This is not something that the "brainiacs" in government/public policy want. Even though, this may be good thing as we will need a tremendous increase in specialists as baby boomers get older and the number of people in the USA above 60 rises greatly.