Well,
The pain fellowships as we know them are getting extremely bizzare in length and qualification. In truth, pain management is a very multifactorial entity. I think interventional pain management will always be in the hands of anesthesiologists. It's really a question of whether they will recind control of this or not....
I think in general to open the flood gates is a bad idea...and a bad business practice. There are many reasons not to do it...and with the way anesthesiologists have become very territorial of late (controlling all things involved in perioperative management), it is their field to lose. They have opened the fellowships to other specialties because of the absolute dearth of people entering the field, but...with numbers picking up, and pain becoming more popular...I doubt anesthesiologists will open up their control. It doesn't make common business sense either, as again there is no control of numbers and increased level of competition. To maintain the lucrative nature of the field (even with medicare reduction in reimbursement)...pain physicians will try to limit pain practices to anesthesiologists. Remember, private practice controls the lucrative jobs and these things are very nepotistic. If three anesthesiologists run a pain practice, they'll be sure to take their own into the practice rather than anyone else....