Fellowship Questions to ask & know

[Disse]

Hello all,

Somewhere, in some forum, I found an excellent list of questions to ask during the interview trail regarding fellowships you're interested in. Unfortunately, I can't find it now and while I have many of my own questions it would be nice to have a list of other questions I may not think of (mainly I'm interested in what current fellows/practicing docs believe people should know before committing to a fellowship program but any other points of view would be nice too).

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

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[Epidural]

When I applied, many of the applicants were concerned with the following:

1. How many pumps and stims will I get to do and will I feel comfortable doing them after fellowship?
2. How many fellows are there and what's the call like? Home call or overnight? Are the fellows happy?
3. What are the people like? Will it be a miserable year?
4. What kind of reputation does this program have and will this be an asset when looking for a job? Are faculty members connected to the Pain community as a whole?
5. What opportunities do I have to get exposure to other facets of Pain Medicine that will be covered on the boards and in clinical practice (EMGs, MRIs, MSK medicine, etc.). If it's not a part of the fellowship program, how many electives are there and are these other specialties open to having us?
6. Is there support to attend conferences such as ASRA, ISIS, NASS, etc.
7. How many c-arms does the clinic have and how are things set up for the fellows. Are there separate days for seeing patients and doing procedures or are they mixed in throughout the day?
8. Besides the clinic, what will my other responsiblities be? Are we covering perioperative patients and managing their PCAs/epidurals or is this covered by the Anesthesia residents?
9. Are there opportunities to do newer procedures such as vertebroplasty, IDET, percutaneous discectomy, peripheral nerve stimulators, etc.