Delaying Heme/onc fellowship by a year

[PGYforever]

Sorry to pester the boards for personal advice but from my perusal I seemed to get somewhat of a mixed message. I am a PGY2 at a competitive residency planning a career in academic solids hopefully doing trials (likely GI malignancy). My wife is a consultant who is planning to apply to business school. To sync our applications up and optimize the chances that we overlap location wise, it would be advantageous for me to delay my application for fellowship for a year, apply at the end of PGY3 and interview while working as a hospitalist for a year. I like gen med and wouldn't mind the work at all.

The big question: Will this make me a less competitive applicant? I am shooting for the more competitive fellowships and wouldn't want to hurt my chances. Otherwise, I have a strong but not spectacular application (good residency, a few first author pubs in mediocre journals, AOA with steps in 260s, letters that should be good etc).

My wife and I are having a hard time sorting all this out and would be thrilled to hear what you all think.

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[gutonc]

You will be asked about it, and you will have a good answer for it. Use that time to get some more research done, even if it's just case reports or chart review type stuff. You'll be fine.

 

[bobsmith]

I did this for very similar reasons and it was totally fine.

 

[Beacopp665]

Will also echo that I delayed for a year for my spouse and we had no issues. As long as there’s a good reason it’s not a problem usually