Most Competitive Fellowships After Internal Medicine Residency

Two things generally contribute most to the competitiveness of a fellowship specialty : Post-fellowship Salary levels and/or Lifestyle. In the US, the more 'procedural' a specialtiy is, the better is gets paid - since insurance companies reimburse procedures higher than just physician consults...example : Cardio guys have their cath labs, GI guys have endoscopies, Nephro docs got dialysis and Allergists got skin-tests and allergy shots as their 'cash cows' ..while Endo and primary care is mostly non-procedural with lower salaries


Very Competitive:

• Cardiology
• Gastroenterology
• Allergy Immunology
• Hematology - Oncology
  

Moderately Competitive:

• Nephrology
• Pulmonary - Critical Care
• Endocrinology : Although Endocrinology fellowship programs experience low fill rates, H1b sponsoring Endocrinology fellowships are fewer in number and make those competitive amongst the H1b IMG population

Not too competitive:

• Infectious Diseases
• Rheumatology
• Geriatrics and the rest of the Internal Medicine sub-specialty fellowships such as Adolescent Medicine, Hospice Medicine, etc.

"Hospitalist" is an emerging fellowship yet to become main-stream - but candidates can get employed as "hospitalists" even after completing Internal medicine residencies without any fellowship training, since the demand is high and fellowship-trained hospitalists have just started to emerge. I am thinking later Hospitalist Fellowship will be moderately competitive too, given the good salary levels and the now famous "one-week-on, next-week-off" schedules


Also read:

- Medical Fellowship Stipends in America
- Specialty-wise salary levels of doctors in United States
- Why J1-waiver Jobs tougher after Fellowships than those without fellowships
- Direct Fellowships without Residency ?

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