So, continuing on with resident concerns I heard about during conversations at the 2014 CAP Residents Forum and Annual Meeting, let’s move on to the fellowship application process.
One nice offering by the Residents Forum for the past two years at the Annual Meeting is a mock fellowship interview. The process was simple in that I only needed to fill out a brief application prior to the meeting with my fellowship interests and I was matched up with a member of the CAP Board of Governors or another CAP national leader who either practiced or had experience in my area of interest (or as close to it as CAP could find out of the available pool of mock interviewers). Once matched, I emailed my personal statement and CV to my mock interviewer (who turned out to be someone I already knew from my work on a CAP Council). I also participated in the mock interviews last year with a pathologist who I didn’t know beforehand. Both times, I received valuable feedback on my submitted materials and advice for the actual interview as well as an open invitation to contact them in the future if I had questions or needed more advice. I highly recommend these mock interviews if you are attending a future CAP Annual Meeting.
Obtaining fellowships can be even more competitive than getting into a residency. There are far fewer spots in that some may only offer one position per year in that subspecialty, programs may have already filled their positions with internal candidates, and the majority of residents (96%) apply for at least one fellowship (85% of third and fourth year residents according to the 2014 ASCP Fellowship and Job Market Survey had already accepted fellowship positions by the time of this survey during the RISE).
The trend these days is to complete at least one fellowship (56% answered yes to this question on the ASCP survey) and many often complete two (39% on the ASCP survey indicated that they would pursue two fellowships). I personally also know individuals who completed three although they are in the minority.
And it’s currently fellowship application season. Even though the suggested deadline is December 1st, we all know that most programs start accepting applications in September. I called some programs in August with questions and they had received applications already! Suffice it to say, from totally anecdotal evidence that I’ve heard, it seems that there are two periods for interviews: Oct/Nov for those accepting applications early and Jan/Feb for those who wait until December 1st to look at their applications. Even from friends in other specialties also going through this process, it seems that the process actually begins the year prior to application.
For those who want to be ahead of the game, at least start getting your CV and personal statements together. Since I’ve been updating my CV whenever something new came up since college, the CV was no problem. But I can tell you that I wished that I had started on the personal statement as a second year. I thought that I was being a semi-early bird to write my initial draft in August. But it took about a month of back-and-forth feedback from people who I asked to read it for me to whittle it down to less than one page. Turns out that most programs want something short and sweet (one page or <500 words). One program even wanted <250 words so I gave them a super abridged version of what I submitted to other programs. So, second years, start now so that you can submit everything in complete form on September 1st. The other part of applications are letters of recommendation. I’ve only heard residents from one program tell me that their letter writers will give them a letter within a day after being asked. If you’re like me, you’ll probably need to ask your letter writers way in advance and sometimes, give quiet reminders. So start early if you want letters ready by the time you submit.
The controversial issue that I always hear whispers about at the three Residents Forums I have attended is that of a standardized fellowship match like we had when we applied for residency. There are pros and cons for and against a standardized match. I was speaking with someone from the Association of Pathology Chairs (APC) and he supported a match. I would agree that it would deter residents from being subjected to undue pressure from programs to decide quickly once an offer is made (most 4th year residents who I spoke with said that they had up to 1 week at most to decide). It would also eliminate the situation that many of them found themselves in where they had accepted a position but later interviewing programs encouraged them to still interview and disregard their previous acceptances (which I think is unethical and I’d politely decline to interview at that program). But I can understand the conundrum that the later interviewing programs that follow the suggested CAP deadlines are subject to when many of their desirable candidates have already signed by the time they interview.
Unlike when the NRMP decided to go a match system for residencies, and later on, to bar pre-matching from participating institutions, the incentives and ability to leverage are very different when it comes to fellowships. Most fellowship programs offer a small number of single digit positions which they can usually easily fill without a centralized application service. And fellowships are a quasi-limbo state between school and our first “real” job. The job market does not cater to regulation and it is hoped that free competition is enough to ensure that everyone ends up where they are meant to be (although we know that connections and word of mouth still matter, especially in the small world of pathology). Programs (supposedly 51% from one study) will also often fill their spots with internal candidates and residents often feel the need to apply earlier and undertake audition rotations for the most competitive fellowships (eg – 2nd year for dermatopathology). While a standardized match may alleviate some of the aforementioned pressures, it does provide some of its own. Residents often have to spend more money to interview at a larger number of programs to feel secure that they will match somewhere and they also need to wait until later in the year to learn their fate. They also would likely have difficulty if they are trying to match for two successive fellowships which is not that unheard of, especially when those fellowships are related.
So, in terms of a standardized match, even though I usually have an opinion on most topics, I’m not sure which is better and the jury is still out. But I do know that the ability to incentivize programs into such a match process is much more difficult than it was for residency programs. It does seem though that residents do prefer a standardized application timeline according to multiple ASCP surveys even if they don’t support a match process. APC and PRODS (program directors section) tend to support a pan-pathology fellowship match while other organized groups within pathology and most residents remain skeptical that one would solve all the issues on both the resident and institution sides of the equation.
Well, for my compadres who are wading in these murky waters this interview season as I will also be, it’s a moot point. So I leave you with this: CAP had a great webinar last year by two pathologists-in-training who had survived this process as well as a program director. The webinar can be accessed here as well as a Q&A FAQ PDF from that webinar.
References:
- KD Bernacki, BJ McKenna, and JL Myers. Challenges and Opportunities in the Application Process for Fellowship Training in Pathology. AJCP, 2012; 137: 543-552. Accessed at http://ajcp.ascpjournals.org/content/137/4/543.full.pdf+html
- WS Black-Schaffer and JM Crawford. The Evolving Landscape for Pathology Subspecialty Fellowship Applications. AJCP, 2012; 137: 513-515. Accessed at http://ajcp.ascpjournals.org/content/137/4/513.full.pdf+html
- JM Crawford, RD Hoffman, WS Black-Schaffer.Pathology Subspecialty Fellowship Application Reform, 2007-2010. AJCP, 2011; 135: 338-356. Accessed at http://ajcp.ascpjournals.org/content/135/3/338.full.pdf+html
- RE Domen and A Brehm Wehler. An examination of professional and ethical issues in the fellowship application process in pathology. Hum Path, Apr 2008; 39(4): 484-488.
- N Lagwinski and JL Hunt. Fellowship Trends of Pathology Residents. Arch Path Lab Med, Sept 2009; 133(9): 1431-1436. Accessed at http://www.archivesofpathology.org/doi/pdf/10.1043/1543-2165-133.9.1431
- JL Myers, SA Yousem, BR DeYoung, ML Cibull (on behalf of ADASP). Matching Residents to Pathology Fellowships: The Road Less Traveled? AJCP, 2011; 135: 335-337. Accessed at http://ajcp.ascpjournals.org/content/135/3/335.full.pdf+html
-Betty Chung, DO, MPH, MA is a third year resident physician at Rutgers – Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, NJ.
Lablogatory 