The end of Interventional radiology fellowships?

[wrkndply]

i was recently told that with all the new integrated IR residency programs, next year will be the end of interventional radiology fellowships.

Is this true? Can anyone expand on this?

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[halpmepls]

My understanding is that you can still do a 2-year "independent IR residency" after a DR residency instead of a 1-year fellowship.

ESIR/integrated IR/DR residencies straight out of medical school are the other option that still exists.

 

[Kuratz]

Correct there will be no more “IR fellowships”.

The old paradigm: DR residency —> 1 year IR fellowship (6 years total)

The new paradigm:
1. Integrated IR residency (6 years)
2. or DR residency (ESIR pathway) --> 1 year Independent IR residency (6 years)
3. or DR residency (non-ESIR) --> 2 year Independent IR residency (7 years)

ESIR essentially consists of the regular diagnostic radiology residency except that most (potentially all) of your R4/PGY-5 electives are IR and you may do some +/- ICU/vascular surgery rotations. As it sits now the curriculum for an integrated IR resident and ESIR resident are the same. Some integrated IR residencies require a surgical internship.

IR Residency Pathways

Learn how to become an interventional radiologist.

www.sirweb.org

 

[Norick13]

Heaven help you if you’re trying to do IR as a non-ESIR and have regional constraints like a family. The 2 non-ESIR applications from our program were far flung, well outside where they wanted to be.

 

[wrkndply]

How does one secure an ESIR spot after matching in a radiology program that offers ESIR?

thanks for the responses so far.

 

[Printer5000]

What kind of impact will this have for applicants next year who are going for DR only?

 

[GoPelicans]

How does one secure an ESIR spot after matching in a radiology program that offers ESIR?

thanks for the responses so far.

Generally doing well at work, research, and having a good app from med school.

There's only 1-2 spots per class. If more ppl than that want it, unfortunately someone gets screwed and has to do an extra year of training for IR.

 

[deleted746658]

i also anticipate spots opening up from integrated IR residents wanting to switch back into DR , especially once they get a taste of the DR life as a resident

 

[orthogenes]

i also anticipate spots opening up from integrated IR residents wanting to switch back into DR , especially once they get a taste of the DR life as a resident

And how will one know about these?

 

[ashar008]

So is it pretty impossible to match to ir fellowship after dr when your program doesn’t have esir?

 

[Norick13]

Not impossible, but be prepared to interview like you’re trying to get into residency again (which it is actually - 2 yr independent residency), and to match far down your list.

The 2 residents from our program who wanted IR, from a non-ESIR program, matched at their last ranked programs (lists into the double digits).

At the same time you’ll watch your classmates doing other DR fellowships interview at a handful of places, all of which will be Brand Name programs, and match at their top choice (or region they desire) or get sign a contract the same day if they’re outside the match (DR fellowships are a buyers market). Fun.

 

[GoPelicans]

Not impossible, but be prepared to interview like you’re trying to get into residency again (which it is actually - 2 yr independent residency), and to match far down your list.

The 2 residents from our program who wanted IR, from a non-ESIR program, matched at their last ranked programs (lists into the double digits).

At the same time you’ll watch your classmates doing other DR fellowships interview at a handful of places, all of which will be Brand Name programs, and match at their top choice (or region they desire) or get sign a contract the same day if they’re outside the match (DR fellowships are a buyers market). Fun.

Has IR always been like this or is this new? Why are people falling so far down their match lists? Do the ESIR people have a much easier time matching somewhere good?

 

[Norick13]

Has IR always been like this or is this new? Why are people falling so far down their match lists? Do the ESIR people have a much easier time matching somewhere good?

this is new to IR. We have an attg at our institution who decided the 4th year of residency he wanted to do IR, interviewed at one place also in our city (also one of the highest ranked programs in the country) and was accepted there for fellowship (this was 5yrs ago). Zero research. Zero extracurriculars. This was common and one of the reasons residents came to our program who wanted IR, was because we would funnel residents to powerhouse Brand Names because our program was a really heavily resident run program.

From a structural stand point it makes total sense - you have a 1 yr fellowship curriculum you can just roll over into a 1yr ‘independent residency’ position. Why would you want to have to design a whole new program? Why would you want residents for more than one year when you already have to interview every year, etc...

You also have residents showing up with their procedure numbers bulked up by the ESIR year. Non-ESIR also appears to be code to PDs that, ‘our program doesn’t have enough volume to support ESIR requirements,’ and therefore can be used as a proxy for early screening.

The problem with that is our program has a good amount of volume, but it’s all swallowed up by the IR/DR residents in their final years, and the 2 PDs don’t want to add the extra requirements ESIR would impose to their respective residency curricula.