Residency Insight -- A PRESENT Podiatry eZine

Guest Editorial: Today's Residency Insight is presented by guest editor, Rhonda Cornell, DPM, Diabetic Limb Salvage Fellow, Georgetown University Hospital, Washington DC. Rhonda tackles the subject of fellowship as seen from the point of view of a fellow.

A few months back, my esteemed colleague and fellow editor, Jarrod Shapiro, DPM, posed the question, Fellowships: The Future of Advanced Podiatric Education? in his Practice Perfect column. If you haven't already, I strongly recommend reading that issue as well.

—John Steinberg, DPM, PRESENT Editor

A Fellow's Viewpoint on Fellowships
by Rhonda Cornell, DPM

The end of the year is quickly approaching for graduating residents. And as you continue to search for the next phase in your medical career, one step to consider is completing a fellowship. A fellowship permits you the opportunity to take advantage of continued learning and furthering your training in a certain aspect of podiatric medicine and surgery that you may want to focus on in the future. It also affords you the option to do something, or more of something, that you didn’t have the chance to do while in residency. As residency programs concentrate on factors such as surgical procedure numbers and variations, meeting these requirements may involve more time focused on achieving these goals rather than concentrating on a certain specialty or field that you are most interested in and would like to carry with you in your future practice.

I can speak from personal experience as I am currently just finishing up my one year fellowship in diabetic limb salvage research at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, DC. Personally, my fellowship has allowed me to expand on research activities that I did not have the opportunity to take full advantage of during residency. I have now had the experience to take my research ideas and write up protocols and informed consents (in 8th grade language—which can be pretty tricky!) that were then submitted to the IRB (the Institutional Review Board). Dealing with the IRB takes on a whole other skill that I have improved on. I have also had the opportunity to work with a research team including, but not limited to, research nurses, coordinators, investigators, contracts and legal departments and the IRB board. Once a protocol is approved, I then have the opportunity to talk to patients that may be good candidates for each project and screen them for possible enrollment in certain trials.

A fellowship may have resulted in taking a pay cut for an extra year because, of course, I may not have made as much this year as the residents that I graduated with. But looking further down the road, having a fellowship under my belt, the ultimate long term goal and hope would be the ability to make up that year not only adding to my education and experiences, but also looking more appealing to future employers. With the insight I have gained through this fellowship, I will be able to take this with me to my new job and as I work with residents and students, I will be able to take on a teaching role in the operating room, clinical setting and now research studies. I am excited to teach what I have learned through my fellowship and further aid residents and students that are interested in taking on research and be able to guide them in the entire scope of what is involved in the research process.

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