so if you do a fellowship and do cases and take call competently, that shows success. why wouldn’t they want to take someone proven in a clinical setting versus an unknown med student? If they were willing to hire them and competent to cover the call and cases in an unaccredited fashion then it makes no sense why they wouldn’t use them in an official residency spot. people have hiccups in life but if you can prove yourself that’s a lot of worth.
Hell I see prelim gen surgery residents that way out perform categorical gen surgery residents at my hospital and probably because they are putting in extra effort both in and out of the hospital. They want the job more and if I was in charge I would hire someone with a drive and want then someone who is complacent and lazy in residency.
You’re failing to see the bigger picture here...you’re damaged goods. Doesn’t matter if you go through that fellowship and perform well. You’re history demonstrates otherwise. You wouldn’t have been terminated if this weren’t the case. Just like how a Med student can pretend during a sub-I, a fellow can suck it up and work their ass off for a year to look good. Who’s to say you won’t relapse or not get along with the people at your new program? It’s just too much of a risk. I’m willing to bet your former PD and chair aren’t going to have glowing reviews of your performance either. As stated previously, this is a small field and people’s reps are at stake so they’re going to be honest in their assessment of you. Any red flags and your application is going into the garbage pile.
Just being brutally honest. If this is the same poster as the other threads, it sounds like you are trying to rationalize why you were let go instead of taking it as a sign that this field may not be for you. It’s unfortunate because it’s possible that if you had started off at a different program, you may not have ended up in this situation to begin with. Either way, you’re fighting an uphill battle trying to get back in the game that will likely only cost you time and energy with very little return. You’d be better off trying to start fresh in a new direction and save yourself the grief. I think there was another poster in the previous thread who had been through multiple “fellowships” and still hadn’t managed to make their way back. You don’t want to find yourself in a position where you throw away 3-4 years of your life only to realize you wasted your time when you could’ve finished another residency during that time.
If you’re spending this much time arguing on an Internet forum though, it seems like you’ve already made your mind up about pursuing one of these fellowships. All I can say is best of luck.
Pre-Residency Fellowships
Why do they even exist?
- For the program: cheap labor (1 resident = 3-4 midlevels)
- For the fellow: ?
If the majority of people in these programs don't match, then why do people do them?
I have spent a long time speaking to programs and PDs and can tell you I have gotten nowhere. Programs will interrogate you to find out exactly what happened. They don’t care about anything else. They don’t care about your scores, research, positive experience after, nothing.
And frankly what I have found is they don’t even care what you say about it. They speak to you because it is part of the process, but they make their decision based completely on speaking to your old PD and chair. Your credibility is less than zero. I will be applying to a new speciality this coming match
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Hi, I’m in a similar situation but have the support of the old program, would you mind PMing me some of the places that were atleast interested enough to talk to your old program? I’ve found none that are really even looking. It may not matter but I figure it’s worth another shot if I can find some who will even take the time to talk to my old program.
they wont even speak to you if you dont have program support, so i did have that 'support.'
"so and so happened, but we support this guy" is support, but it doesnt really help you all that much. they will just ask all the details about the "so and so happened" and not really care about the support
and unfortunately ive been told the places that i spoke to have all filled their positions
what are the best places that match their own unaccredited fellows?