Pursuing multiple fellowships

[Guest physiology]

I recently had a conversation with a physician with whom I work closely with.

 

Anyway, he was telling me that, even in medicine, you should always diversify, and pick up as many opportunities to sub-specialize, advance your education, and pick up extra skills, etc, as possible. (He for one, does clinical research, has a clinic 1x a week, is head of several notable medical organizations in BC, has a BSc, MD, and Masters in epidemiology, recently did ACLS, etc).

 

In essence, if he ever gets fired for whatever reason, he has a back-up somewhere.

 

Okay, now for my point. It crossed my mind that a resident/fellow could pursue multiple fellowships if no one else was competing for them (ie pediatric and dermatological surgery fellowships) Is this rare? Frowned upon by governments due to funding issues? I could imagine fellows wanting to eventually stop their post-grad medical education and set up a practice to start working under "normal" wages!

 

Let me know your thoughts!

Thanks!

[Guest Ian Wong]

It is the rare and truly insane person who goes after multiple fellowships. Most people by the end of residency are dying to get out there and start making some money, paying off debts, and getting on with building a practice and starting their medical career.

 

Besides, referral patterns being what they are, it's unlikely that you will ever fully utilize both fellowships equally. And if you don't use that knowledge, you'll lose it. It's not like if you did an OB/GYN residency, and then did both a Gyn-Onc and a Reproductive, Endocrine and Infertility fellowship that you will be hacking out ovarian and uterine tumours on Mondays and Tuesdays, and counselling and performing infertility treatments on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

 

Your office setup, referral patterns, access to hospital resources and OR time will all be significantly inferior to someone who concentrates on one area exclusively. For that reason, doing two fellowships is extremely rare.

 

Ian