What is the shortest IM fellowship?

[Captain DO]

Anything less than 3 years?

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[ArkansasMed]

GIM, geriatrics and most of the non-competitive IM fellowships that do not include research years are 2 years (endo, rheum etc). If there are research years then it goes up to 3 + years (example being Harvard's nephrology program VS Penn).

 

[IMreshopeful]

Typically endo, rheum, geri, nephro are all 2 years. Places which either offer or mandate an extra research or global health year are 3 year fellowships.

H/O, PCC, cards, GI are all 3 year fellowships. Rarely they will offer or mandate a fourth year of fellowship as a research year. Usually in these fellowships six months to 1 year are built in as research time.

It depends on your goals. If you want to be a research nephrologist with some clinical duties then you would want to be in the three year program ostensibly. If you want to do private practice then there's no benefit.

 

[FutureInternist]

Think for a living = 2 years

Do stuff for a living = 3 years

 

[Raryn]

Anything less than 3 years?

1 Year
Adolescent Medicine
Palliative Care
Sleep Medicine
Sports Medicine

2 Years
Allergy and Immunology
Endocrinology
Infectious Disease
Rheumatology

As well as programs in Hematology, Oncology, Pulmonary, and Critical Care where you only do one and not the other. They're generally 2 years, but also frequently research heavy, so can be 3 years or longer.

3 Years
Cardiology
Gastroenterology
Hematology/Oncology
Pulmonology/Critical Care

4-5 years total would be the superfellowships:

Cardiology Superfellowships
-Adult Congenital Heart Disease (2 years)
-Advanced Heart Failure and Heart Transplant (1 year)
-Advanced Cardiac Imaging (1 year)
-Interventional cardiology (1-2 years)
-Electrophysiology (now 2 years for everyone)

Gastroenterology Superfellowships
-(Transplant) Hepatology (1 year)
-Advanced Endoscopy (1 year)

Pulmonology Superfellowship
-Interventional Pulmonary (1 year)
(A lot of people do Sleep after a pulmonary fellowship, but it's not technically a superfellowship because you can do it straight out of residency. The straight pathway is becoming a lot more common from what I can see, but I have a pretty small sample size of sleep physicians I know).

All of the above can have years added on if you want to do a super research heavy fellowship. I think all of them except for Advanced Cardiac Imaging, Interventional Pulm and Advanced Endoscopy are ACGME accredited, and the latter are fairly well-recognized tracks.

In addition to all that, there's a number of unaccredited research fellowships of variable utility, including "General Internal Medicine" fellowships (usually focused on quality improvement), things like transplant nephrology/transplant ID, and esoteric subspecialty fellowships (like a year looking only at hypertension or a specific type of cancer or some such).

Edit: Added the last paragraph.
Edit: Made a few changes based on comment below.

 

[smartparts]

1 Year
Adolescent Medicine
Palliative Care
Sleep Medicine
Sports Medicine

2 Years
Allergy and Immunology
Endocrinology
Infectious Disease
Rheumatology

As well as programs in Hematology, Oncology, Pulmonary, and Critical Care where you only do one and not the other. They're generally 2 years, but also frequently research heavy, so can be 3 years or longer.

3 Years
Cardiology
Gastroenterology
Hematology/Oncology
Pulmonology/Critical Care

4-5 Years
Cardiology Superfellowships (So 3+X)
-Advanced Heart Failure (1 year)
-Advanced Cardiac Imaging (1 year)
-Interventional cardiology (1-2 years)
-Electrophysiology (now 2 years for everyone)
Gastroenterology Superfellowships
-Hepatology (1 year)
-Advanced Endoscopy (1 year)
Pulmonology Superfellowship
-Interventional Pulmonary
(A lot of people do Sleep after a pulmonary fellowship, but it's not technically a superfellowship because you can do it straight out of residency. The straight pathway is becoming a lot more common from what I can see, but I have a pretty small sample size of sleep physicians I know).

All of the above can have years added on if you want to do a super research heavy fellowship. I think all of them except for Advanced Cardiac Imaging, Interventional Pulm and Advanced Endoscopy are ACGME accredited, and the latter are fairly well-recognized tracks.

In addition to all that, there's a number of unaccredited research fellowships of variable utility, including "General Internal Medicine" fellowships (usually focused on quality improvement), and esoteric subspecialty fellowships (like a year looking only at hypertension or a specific type of cancer or some such).

Edit: Added the last paragraph.

Don't forget transplant nephrology/transplant ID! Also straight up hepatology can be done out of IM and is only 1 year I believe.

 

[Raryn]

Don't forget transplant nephrology/transplant ID! Also straight up hepatology can be done out of IM and is only 1 year I believe.

I forgot the transplant ones, though I don't believe they're accredited fellowships. Looking at it again, I also forgot adult congenital heart disease. I added a comment to that effect above.

As for hepatology, it has been closed to all non-GI graduates ever since it became ACGME accredited. There's still a handful of programs out there that aren't accredited, but the remainder of hepatology programs require you to have done a GI fellowship first.

 

[flipmd]

The shortest is the one you enjoy the most 😉