Sunday, December 10, 2017

The road to fellowship: aiming for the stars

This post is by my colleague who I had to hound to write this post once I knew where he matched. The reason I wanted him to write this was to prove that IMG’s do have what it takes to get into prestigious institutions and to not listen to the disbelievers!

"I was ecstatic when I got into the Med-Peds program. It was the perfect program for someone with a global health interest like mine. Also, after having worked in Mumbai in non-academic settings for a year, I was hungry to learn. Medicine became my life and I enjoyed every day at work. Finding my way into residency also gave me confidence.

I then made a decision. All my life I was aiming low, telling myself that I would never be good enough to go to AIIMS, Harvard or any of the Ivy league programs. I told myself that this time I will try. I will work hard to find myself in the best program in the specialty of my choice.

So, from the beginning of my residency, in addition to focusing on my clinical growth, which I must add is extremely important and indispensable, I starting thinking about what fellowship I wanted and how I was going to get there.

My interest is in the practice of critical care in a global health setting. I decided that I wanted to do Infectious Diseases and Critical Care- an unusual choice but an upcoming specialty in medicine. With my program director’s help, I found a mentor and worked on an ID research project. I completed it within the year and submitted it to IDWeek, an international ID conference. I presented there the year after. I also worked on workshops, papers and other teaching projects.

I realized in the course of applying to residency, that being on a visa is big negative for programs. H1B visa narrowed my fellowship prospects further. So I had to be the best candidate possible.

Somewhere in my third year, I realized that Med-Peds being a four-year program, left me with just two years for fellowship as the limit on H1B is 6 years, after which we have to have applied for a green card or leave the country for a year. I had to then make a choice. ID or Critical Care. I couldn’t do both, at least not initially. This was really hard. I knew I loved both but I couldn’t decide. Also, my profile was better suited for an ID program than a critical care program. After weeks of thinking about what I wanted, discussion with visa lawyers to get the specifics of visa and green card right, I decided to apply to both ID and critical care. My philosophy was that what I really wanted was to be in academics practicing global health medicine. It was important for me to land in a program that supported my career interests and helped me grow. And as I found out through the fellowship interview process, it is predominantly about finding a mentor.

I looked at ID programs and realized that I could not even apply to some Ivy league programs because they wouldn’t sponsor an H1B visa. I looked at 30-something critical care programs and found that only about 15 programs sponsor an H1B visa. I was indignant, but thankfully I had put in all the work to become a good candidate.

I heard from some really strong ID programs and I was drawn to all of them! Amongst the critical care programs, UPMC, Pittsburgh seemed most interesting. It is probably the oldest critical care program in the country and arguably one of the best. When I interviewed at UPMC I found out that they have a global health track. I also found a physician there who I knew would be the perfect mentor for me. My interview went well. I was well prepared (make sure you prepare for some behavioral questions) and my enthusiasm for my future career interest and the program was apparent. I got a pre-match offer for critical care (most critical care medicine programs are not part of the match) and I was thrilled to accept it.

I look back and see how far I have come. How many years it took me and how hard it was. But when I was inside it all, I never dreamed I would come this far. But I did not doubt my love for medicine, my enthusiasm or my stamina to do what it takes. My only motivation was, and is, to become the best physician I could become!

I won’t oversimplify the process of getting into residency and fellowship by saying that all that is needed is motivation and love for the field, because I know that unearned privilege like having money to stay in the US to do rotations, luck, meeting the right people and bunch of other factors all make a difference. But I can tell you that you will absolutely need hard work, motivation and perseverance to make your dream come true. It is possible to become that successful physician you want to be.

Dream big. It will happen.

Signing out

Varun Shetty
(varunshetty@protonmail.ch)"

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