Are fellowships competitive? Do they care about your surgical experience in residency?

[Robin-jay]

Same as the title.

I'm just curious if fellowships require a strong previous residency or if that matters at all.

For example, can someone who did a residency at the VA, where surgery is usually less focused on, then proceed to get a fellowship in a surgery focus?

Thanks.

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[Weirdy]

Unlikely. Need connections or stellar referrals from inside if you have no connections to the good fellowships.

The ones that are run out of a private group or subpar programs just so you can can call yourself "Fellowship Trained" do not care whatsoever and have open positions all the time.

 

[Feli]

The only good fellowships are a few of the Acfas ones. It has right on that website list of fellowships who the current and recent fellows are.

They take from average, good, elite residency grads.

It's a bit of a weird loop, but the ppl doing good fellowships are the ones who don't need a fellowship (did good residency).

 

[iridocyclitiss]

If you really want to you there's a list of previous fellows on the ACFAS fellow website and you can see which residents tend to go where.
I know some of the big name fellowships only take people from big name residency programs...

For example, can someone who did a residency at the VA, where surgery is usually less focused on, then proceed to get a fellowship in a surgery focus?

To quote this part of your post, earlier this year there was a fellowship q and a with pretty much all of the acfas fellowships and the main point the kept reiterating was "we don't teach people how to do surgery, that's what residency is for" main point being is they are there to help someone who knows how to do surgery become even better at it.

A weakness of the pod fellowships is they aren't as tightly regulated so theres a wide variability in what someone will do during fellowship. Many programs at the Q and A did totals, frames, big recons etc, but there were also many who just did the typical podiatry cases with minimal recon and trauma.. honestly if i didn't get a big recon fellowship i would rather just start working if my choice were just the bread and butter fellowship. Makes more sense to get paid more and do those bread and butter cases than to do an extra year for bunions and HT.

That being said i know of a booming fellowship at Wycoff Heights....

 

[PTPuser]

For example, can someone who did a residency at the VA, where surgery is usually less focused on, then proceed to get a fellowship in a surgery focus?

VA NM isn't the same as VA AZ. And on that note, a current Hyer fellow is a grad from VA NM and he's a force to be reckon with.

 

[Feli]

VA NM isn't the same as VA AZ. And on that note, a current Hyer fellow is a grad from VA NM and he's a force to be reckon with.

Yeah the fellowships will have up and down years, just like residencies. It's dynamic.
Some years, they match rockstars.
Other years, they get the best they can... or go unfilled. It happens to even the best training spots.

Fellowships are adding spots too, OFAC aka Hyer included (1/yr when he did it and for many years, to two recently, and now to 3/yr)... and why wouldn't they want more 60k/yr clinic/research docs? That will affect their ease or difficulty to get... and it also takes more cases from residents at associated programs.

The good Acfas fellowships have always and will tend to pick from top quarter or third or at least half of residents... aka folks who already got pretty good surgery training in residency if they applied themselves. That has been the norm for years... basically since the fellowship fad started. As there are more programs and spots, there will be some YoY variance, though. I don't think there will ever be years where you see bottom half residency grads getting the top 10-20 Acfas fellowship spots.

...but yeah, I agree VA-Albuquerque is a pretty good program... top half or third among DPM residencies now. Their new director is very good... huge upgrade, they are let outside the VA to do some decent cases with ABQ attendings, and they still send some pgy3s to train and get diversity at Kaiser.

We also have to remember fellowship's optional. It always was - and still is - true that a lot of top podiatry residency grads don't even consider fellowship - yet many of those 3-year trained (and even some 2yr) are currently working as fellowship directors, lol. That desire of any given year's top grads, the adding of more spots at good fellowships, and many other things (retire/closing/opening of fellowships) will continue to change the fellowship applicant pools.

The cpme and non accredited podiatry Fellowships - and even many of the lower level Acfas ones - are kinda all over the board in terms of quality and applicant standards. I think that highly variable "fellowship trained" product is why residency and board qual/cert will continue to be a main things - esp for jobs that get huge app pools. It's almost like the PPMR POR PSR-12 PSR-24 and preceptorship podiatry days when people had to cobble together their training. It's as if we had nearly standardized 3yr surgical (we never truly did... too many inadequate programs), and now we quickly revert to post-grad DPM training irregularity again.

 

[HeySister]

Just look for where the graduates came from. Then look where they go after. That is more important. Most of the good programs have been around long enough to have at least 5 years or so or graduates. If they are taking a bunch of residents from elite programs you probably would be wasting a visit. But where they came from does not matter, where they go matters. It would be useful to have that data.

 

[air bud]

Just look for where the graduates came from. Then look where they go after. That is more important. Most of the good programs have been around long enough to have at least 5 years or so or graduates. If they are taking a bunch of residents from elite programs you probably would be wasting a visit. But where they came from does not matter, where they go matters. It would be useful to have that data.

They don't publish this because they are afraid of the results. This needs to be mandatory as a part of maintaining felllowship status. But then no more cheap labor...