Questions for attendings

[King Oto]

Hey guys. I'm a community Otolaryngologist working as a hospital employee in a smallish remote town. It's my first job out of residency. I'm making great money and they're helping out with loans so things are fine for now. I've been here just over 1.5 years. I don't anticipate staying long-term and I'm already starting to look for other opportunities. I'm really loving rhinology and have started an allergy program here and I'm doing well. I want to focus more of my practice on rhinology and start doing more advanced cases that I just can't do with my general ENT training. I was considering applying to a fellowship and then going to a bigger metropolitan area to establish myself long-term. I only had one rhinology publication as a resident and trained in a smaller not overly academic program. It seems rhinology fellowships are pretty competitive these days. Do you have any suggestions as to how I could beef up my research profile? Also, are there any rhinology fellowships outside the match? Would it be worth doing a research fellowship for 6 months? Thanks.

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[resxn]

I'm not the kind of guy that likes going the research route. There's a few things you could do besides that. You could do some clinical trials from your own practice. You could get involved in the ARS where you will meet everyone who is in charge of a residency program in the country and those associations are worth far more than any number of first author papers. You can get involved in Academy committees where you will meet a lot of rhinologists. You can submit something to present at the Academy meeting. You can write a book chapter for a rhinology book. There's lots of ways to beef it up without taking off 6 months, but, heck, if you can live that way and it's appealing to you, go for it.

 

[Leforte]

Are you looking are doing skull base work?

 

[neutropeniaboy]

I know people who were in private practice and at least one in academic practice who went back to do fellowships in various things. They didn't return to their original jobs, so there may have been some dissatisfaction in what they were doing. They did, however, succeed in getting what they wanted. None of them does research, even the "academic" guy, so it's not a requirement. Many fellowships do want you to produce research, and as Leforte suggested, some are more skull base heavy than others.