peds fellowship choice (non-research oriented career?)

[SolMarJunio]

Hi! I'm starting peds residency this year - so still plenty of time for explorations and decisions, but interested in your input on how well a subspecialty could potentially fulfill the preferences that I have:
- I'm interested in a more outpatient-based/or consultant-type/lower-intensity field (like, I don't think I'll thrive well in ED, NICU, PICU). I'm also not so interested in a research-career, but am also not interested in a private-practice model (I'm both terrible at business-related things and a believer in single-payer, don't want insurance to be an issue).
- for example, my understanding is that peds endo or rheum would be limited to academic medical centers, that there'd be an expectation for research, and maybe not a ton of flexibility in schedule, etc? i'm also curious about are B&D, AI...

thanks for listening and interested in hearing any feedback

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[Oso]

All I know about peds endo, development, and especially rheum is that they're desperate for people.

I think it would be relatively easy to find a job at an academic center/practice that let's you focus on patient care instead of research... mostly because they really need more people in those fields.

In terms of flexibility of schedule... I can't really comment on it. One of the difficult things is you may join a practice that has very few (or even zero) attendings so you may end up with relatively frequent call. Overall though, the lifestyle of these fields is more regular and chill than the inpatient fields you mentioned.

 

[FlowLimited]

Don't let disinterest in research guide your career decisions. Research in fellowship and beyond can take many forms (bench, clinical, quality improvement, etc.). Your opinion may change (or maybe it won't) once you've experienced more of pediatrics. Research also doesn't have to be part of your career as an attending even in academics. You will find that many institutions have academic tracks. There will certainly be some physician scientists who are expected to be investigators, secure external funding, and publish regularly but they are often the minority. The rest of the division will be made up of clinician educators whose academic pursuits are teaching, QI, and the occasional small publication. There may even be others who are just clinical workhorses called academic clinicians.

Keep an open mind and find an area of pediatrics you enjoy.

 

[mvenus929]

There are still plenty of private practice and employed positions for peds endo outside of academic institutions. I've gotten recruiting emails from about 5 places in the past 2 weeks, and only two of them are academic centers, and none of them are looking to hire someone to do extensive research with grant funding. Most of them expect ~6 clinics per week (1 clinic = 1 half day), with the rest of your time being administrative. Of course, private practice allows you to build your schedule more flexibly.

 

[oldbearprofessor]

Hi! I'm starting peds residency this year - so still plenty of time for explorations and decisions, but interested in your input on how well a subspecialty could potentially fulfill the preferences that I have:
- I'm interested in a more outpatient-based/or consultant-type/lower-intensity field (like, I don't think I'll thrive well in ED, NICU, PICU). I'm also not so interested in a research-career, but am also not interested in a private-practice model (I'm both terrible at business-related things and a believer in single-payer, don't want insurance to be an issue).
- for example, my understanding is that peds endo or rheum would be limited to academic medical centers, that there'd be an expectation for research, and maybe not a ton of flexibility in schedule, etc? i'm also curious about are B&D, AI...

thanks for listening and interested in hearing any feedback

There are plenty of jobs in pedi specialties with minimal to no research. You might also find that even if you are not interested in directing research, you are interested in participating in research in the form of being part of multi-center trials. Also a lot of research isn't lab based, there is plenty of room for outcomes research etc that you might find more appealing.

 

[SurfingDoctor]

Since research doesn’t support people like it used to in academic centers and the ROI on research pales in comparison to clinical revenue, many academic centers have both clinician educator and master clinician tracks that either have reduced or no scholarly productivity requirements, respectively.

 

[NurWollen]

PGY-3 here starting fellowship in July. I get the sense that "academic" can mean a lot of things, and I think some of the above posters have said as much.

For example, there are physician scientists who do 6 weeks of clinical service a year, and do grant-funded research the rest of the year. On the other end of the spectrum are physicians who are primarily clinicians at academic centers, +/- working with residents +/- fellows. And although i can't speak from experience, there seem to be positions that fall somewhere in between.

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[SolMarJunio]

Thank you all for your responses!
I'm definitely feeling reassured and more optimistic about these possibilities.
Will keep on exploring // trying to stay open as much as possible. I appreciate it ^^