AOA and Fellowships

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Bad Moose

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I am a Psychiatry resident and I am a rising 3rd year. I have been exploring fellowship options however it seems I have run into somewhat of a limbo. My program has applied for ACGME however it is my understanding that even if the program is accredited tomorrow the ABPN only lets you take the board exam if you have 3 years of accreditation. So It looks like I have to take the AOA boards. Now normally I wouldn't mind however not being ACMGE accredited and board certified appears to severely limit my fellowship opportunities. Some of my colleagues have also run into this problem. It appears that the ABPN is adamant not to allow AOA grads to apply to their fellowship (however strange it may seem because foreign or Canadian grads are allowed).

In short it looks like my only options for fellowship is unaccredited programs such as neuromodulation/interventional psychiatry or perhaps Addiction Medicine. I just got off the phone with them and it appears they to require ABMS primary certification for boards.

I was wondering if anymore had any experience or tips in this matter. Thanks for the great forum and I have learned so much these past 7 years especially from the psychiatry journal list.

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I'm afraid you have characterized your dilemma very well. Unless the AOA boards get ABMS certification, it will remain this way and applicants should know this when thinking about applications. The one question you may want to ask is if you get one year of ACGME as an MS4 and find a dual AOA ACGME two year child fellowship, would that allow you to sit for ACGME boards.
 
Good news! We are now initially accredited and all this worry was for not...funny in life it seems so much effort is spent for scenarios that do not materialize. So now I can enter a fellowship, whether I can sit for the ABPN board is another story. Just wanted to update. Thanks for your reply though.
 
Very nice, and good job goes to your director for jumping through the hoops.
 
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