Girish Mahajan (Editor)

Fellowship (medicine)

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A fellowship is the period of medical training in the United States and Canada that a physician or dentist may undertake after completing a specialty training program (residency). During this time (usually more than one year), the physician is known as a fellow. Fellows are capable of acting as attending physician or consultant physician in the generalist field in which they were trained, such as internal medicine or pediatrics. After completing a fellowship in the relevant sub-specialty, the physician is permitted to practice without direct supervision by other physicians in that sub-specialty, such as cardiology or oncology.

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United States

In the USA, the majority of fellowships are accredited by the ACGME Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. There are a few programs that are not accredited as well, and are actually well received given that it is more important to be board certified for the primary specialty as a physician, and fellowship quality is often more based on research productivity.

ACGME Fellowships

The following are organized based on specialty required for the fellowship.

Internal Medicine or Pediatrics

  • Cardiology
  • Endocrinology
  • Gastroenterology
  • Hematology
  • Nephrology
  • Oncology
  • Immunology
  • Infectious disease
  • Critical care medicine
  • Pulmonology
  • Surgery

    Over recent years, there has been an increasing number of integrated programs, allowing for faster completion of long residencies (eg thoracic surgery integrated lasts 6 years instead of the 8 it would otherwise take).

    ObGyn

  • Oncology
  • Maternal Fetal Medicine
  • Minimally Invasive Gyn Surgery
  • Pediatric and Adolescent Gyn
  • Reproductive Endocrinology
  • Ophthalmology

  • Cornea
  • Glaucoma
  • Medical retina
  • Neuro-ophthalmology
  • Oculoplastic and reconstructive surgery
  • Oncology
  • Pathology
  • Pediatric
  • Refractive
  • Uveitis
  • Vitreoretinal surgery
  • Urology

  • Pediatric
  • Orthopaedic

  • Hand
  • Sports Medicine
  • Pediatrics
  • Spine
  • Foot and Ankle
  • Joint replacement
  • Trauma
  • Oncology
  • Other

  • Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery
  • Neonatology
  • Hematopathology
  • Cytopathology
  • Traumatologist
  • Clinical Informatics
  • Geriatrics
  • Hospice and Palliative Medicine
  • Interventional Radiology
  • Psychiatry
  • Rheumatology
  • Sleep medicine
  • Sports medicine
  • Transplant hepatology
  • Combined fellowships

    There are a number of programs offering a combined fellowship, training in two or more sub-specialties as part of a single program.

  • Pulmonary/Critical Care: this type of program is more common than Pulmonary Disease (non-combination) programs. As of 2007, there were 130 ACGME-accredited combined Pulmonary/Critical Care programs while only 25 programs for Pulmonary Disease alone.
  • Hematology/Oncology: as of 2005, there were 125 ACGME-accredited programs for Hematology-Oncology, while only 12 programs for Hematology alone and 18 for Oncology alone.
  • Geriatrics/Oncology: the American Board of Internal Medicine approved a 3-year combined fellowship training program in medical oncology and geriatrics. The John A. Hartford Foundation initially funded 10 institutions for this type of training.
  • References

    Fellowship (medicine) Wikipedia