Combined Fellowship Heme/Onc

[Bigwill6709]

Hey everyone,

M3 here interested in applying for Med/Peds. I'm just trying to do well on my rotations now and do everything I can to get me into a good Med/Peds program, but I have one eye of the future. My plan for some time has been to do Med/Peds followed by a peds heme/onc fellowship. I dream of specializing in the management of pediatric cancer survivors. As I'm going along, however, I'm really liking the world of adult heme/onc too. I know there are a few combined adult/peds heme/onc fellowships. Does anyone here know how the curriculum is generally structured for those fellowships? Is there any reduction in the training time considering that would tac on an extra 6 years if not (3 adult heme/onc and 3 peds heme/onc). It would seem reasonable to me, since heme/one fellowships are generally 1 year clinical-heavy and 2 years research-heavy that you could just do 1 adult clinical year + 1 peds clinical year followed by 2-3 years of research in your area of interest with reduced clinical duties. Any insights are appreciated.

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[tantacles]

Hey everyone,

M3 here interested in applying for Med/Peds. I'm just trying to do well on my rotations now and do everything I can to get me into a good Med/Peds program, but I have one eye of the future. My plan for some time has been to do Med/Peds followed by a peds heme/onc fellowship. I dream of specializing in the management of pediatric cancer survivors. As I'm going along, however, I'm really liking the world of adult heme/onc too. I know there are a few combined adult/peds heme/onc fellowships. Does anyone here know how the curriculum is generally structured for those fellowships? Is there any reduction in the training time considering that would tac on an extra 6 years if not (3 adult heme/onc and 3 peds heme/onc). It would seem reasonable to me, since heme/one fellowships are generally 1 year clinical-heavy and 2 years research-heavy that you could just do 1 adult clinical year + 1 peds clinical year followed by 2-3 years of research in your area of interest with reduced clinical duties. Any insights are appreciated.

If you do them both at the same institution in a combined fellowship, it shaves off at least one year and possibly two. I would check med-peds.org for more details about combined fellowships.


Large dogs

 

[gutonc]

Hey everyone,

M3 here interested in applying for Med/Peds. I'm just trying to do well on my rotations now and do everything I can to get me into a good Med/Peds program, but I have one eye of the future. My plan for some time has been to do Med/Peds followed by a peds heme/onc fellowship. I dream of specializing in the management of pediatric cancer survivors. As I'm going along, however, I'm really liking the world of adult heme/onc too. I know there are a few combined adult/peds heme/onc fellowships. Does anyone here know how the curriculum is generally structured for those fellowships? Is there any reduction in the training time considering that would tac on an extra 6 years if not (3 adult heme/onc and 3 peds heme/onc). It would seem reasonable to me, since heme/one fellowships are generally 1 year clinical-heavy and 2 years research-heavy that you could just do 1 adult clinical year + 1 peds clinical year followed by 2-3 years of research in your area of interest with reduced clinical duties. Any insights are appreciated.

In general, the combined adult/peds onc fellowships (which are rare, not well advertised, and largely ad hoc) are 2+2 and typically don't including double boarding in adult hem/onc.

One of my (adult onc) co-fellows did this and has made a nice career for herself in the Sarcoma and AYA/Survivorship world. And she's worked very hard for it...from M4 year onward (8 years of training and now in her 3rd year as faculty). It's not an easy, or particularly well-marked road...but there are options out there.

 

[tantacles]

In general, the combined adult/peds onc fellowships (which are rare, not well advertised, and largely ad hoc) are 2+2 and typically don't including double boarding in adult hem/onc.

One of my (adult onc) co-fellows did this and has made a nice career for herself in the Sarcoma and AYA/Survivorship world. And she's worked very hard for it...from M4 year onward (8 years of training and now in her 3rd year as faculty). It's not an easy, or particularly well-marked road...but there are options out there.

Let it not be forgotten also that it's a ****ing awesome road with really cool patients with fantastic stories. :-D

 

[Bigwill6709]

Thanks for the help everyone. I'll keep this in mind as I'm moving forward and figuring out what I want to be when I grow up.

 

[mercaptovizadeh]

Thanks for the help everyone. I'll keep this in mind as I'm moving forward and figuring out what I want to be when I grow up.

Heme/onc is quite different between adult and peds, so it's hard to marry the 2 specialties. There are a lot of combine specialties where the overlap is much stronger/much more practical, such as ID, rheum, endo and even renal and GI. And A/I is combined anyway. If you're deadset on heme/onc I would recommend just doing adult heme/onc. While survival is less than in pediatrics, there's also more research coming through the pipeline with the immunotherapy in adult patients and the income opportunities are much, much better with adults. You also have the opportunity to actually do PP which is very hard in peds heme/onc. Sometimes you need to be practical about these things.

 

[mercaptovizadeh]

That said, the 2 people I know of who do combined heme/onc practice benign heme and specifically with a focus on sickle cell and other anemias.