Why are there UNaccredited fellowships - whats the point?

[tBw]

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I'm a little confused looking at the homepages of some professional societies. Most specialties have some form of fellowship you can pursue. However, only a subset of these actually seem to give you accreditation

eg in FP you can be accredited in geriatrics and sports medicine. However, there are also FP fellowships in EM which do NOT lead to EM board certification (as one example).

in EM you can be certified in hyperbaric, EM-peds or toxicology - but there are also fellowships in critical care and international medicine, neither of which leads to board certification.

I am guessing that such things exist as these programs are trying to obtain board certification? Or fulfilling some gap in the market of services where skills are needed but BC/BE physicians are not available?

Why would someone do these? Isn't it a bit of a limited time investment eg SAEM is working towards having only BC/BE EM physicians in ERs...are the FP fellowships in EM only useful in rural areas? Surely in urban areas a BC/BE crital care fellow would get the CC job rather than the EM doc with an unaccredited CC fellowship?

If anyone can shed light for me I would appreciate it...

 

[docB]

Not everything is about a certificate. Lots of unaccredited fellowships make you more attractve in the job market and/or satisfy a personal interest. For EM docs there are ultrasound, EMS, research and admin fellowships to name a few. People do these because they are interested in the subjects and intend to incorporate these fields into their careers.

 

[tBw]

Considering the massive cut in pay and the time (1-3 years) involved though I am just surprised people would do it unless it was more of a certain investment than it seems ie in urban areas won't crital care certified people get the cc jobs - thus it truly seems pointless for someone to go from an EM attendings salary toa fellowship salary for a year or two to do this....? Or maybe it isn't unusual for them still to get the job in which case I understand why they might do it...?

 

[docB]

Some people feel it's worth it. You keep mentioning CC fellowships and urban areas. Yeah, if you want to be a CC hospitalist in NY you won't get the job as an EM trained doc with a CC fellowship. If you want to be an ER doc in a place where you have to stabilize and manage patients for periods of time before they can be transfered (this would include a huge number of hospitals) then a CC fellowship would be valuable.

 

[tBw]

thanks for the replies docB.

I kept mentioning EM docs doing CC only because it was something I knew about (I used to work in a CC unit) and I guess it's maybe better to talk about something you have some reference about than something you know nothing about.