Hospitalist before A/I?

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mercaptovizadeh

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Is it bad to do hospitalist medicine for 1-2 years before pursuing A/I fellowship? I have a lot of research background that is marketable to A/I and am ultimately interested in developing novel immunotherapeutics or vaccines in industry or academia. For financial/family reasons, doing a 1-2 year hospitalist gig would potentially be very helpful. Is it frowned upon and does it significantly lower chances of matching, especially if I am not doing extra research during the hospitalist years (haven't done any during residency) and am really resting on my basic science PhD to prove my interest/competence in research during fellowship and beyond?

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My program director prefers accepting fellows directly from residency (major plus if they serve a chief year) as they personally believe it is hard for someone to experience attending life to go back to a fellowship (i.e., demands of fellowship, moonlighting, hospitalist (1 week on/off, etc). At the end of the day, the view of being a hospitalist before fellowship will be program director dependent.

I personally do not believe it should make a difference, at least in terms of ranking an applicant. I think your research will serve you well, especially with the skills and knowledge you've gained earning a PhD. I will say that "connections" help (like they do for most careers). I think your sincere interest in A/I research will make you standout as an applicant in a field that (from my experience) attracts applicants who....don't.
 
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