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Should neonatal-perinatal medicine move to two-year fellowships?

Journal of Perinatology volume 44, pages 1222–1227 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

The duration of the majority of fellowships in pediatrics has been three-years. With increasing shortages of some outpatient-based pediatric subspecialists, shorter two-year fellowships are being considered for clinically oriented trainees not interested in a career based on research. Shortening the duration of fellowship may have some financial merits such as achieving a higher salary earlier after shorter training. However, we feel that continuing with a three-year duration for neonatology is more pragmatic at this time due to reductions in intensive care rotations during residency, time required to  achieve procedural excellence, the need for exposure to quality assurance methodology, proficiency in novel techniques such as bedside ultrasound, and to maintain the physician-scientist pipeline. The demand for neonatal fellowship continues to be high. Ongoing evaluation of the job market, training needs and fellowship curriculum is needed to determine if the duration of fellowship should be altered in the future.

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Fig. 1: Three-year average salary adjusted for inflation based on AAMC benchmarks utilized at UC Davis Health for aligned funds flow.
Fig. 2: Schematic representation of the argument “for” and “against” reducing in the duration of neonatal-perinatal medicine fellowship training.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pediatrics, Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital, New York Medical College, Valhalla, NY, USA

    Shetal Shah

  2. Department of Pediatrics, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, USA

    Patrick Myers

  3. Department of Pediatrics, Division of Neonatology and Developmental Biology, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Josephine M. Enciso

  4. Division of Neonatal and Developmental Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Alexis S. Davis

  5. Department of Pediatrics, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Elizabeth E. Crouch

  6. The Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Elizabeth E. Crouch

  7. Department of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, Homer Stryker School of Medicine, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI, USA

    Andrea M. Scheurer

  8. Neonatal Intensive Care, Bronson Children’s Hospital, Kalamazoo, MI, USA

    Andrea M. Scheurer

  9. Department of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine, Southern California Permanente Medical Group, Anaheim, CA, USA

    Clara Song

  10. Department of Pediatrics, University of California at Davis, Sacramento, CA, USA

    Satyan Lakshminrusimha

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  8. Satyan Lakshminrusimha
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Contributions

SS contributed to the manuscript and provided critical revisions of the text. PM and JE wrote the drafted the section impacting education and made critical revisions to the manuscript. AD made critical revisions to the manuscript. EC and AS co-authored the section evaluating this potential change on research and made critical revisions to the manuscript. CS wrote the section on the impact on clinical neonatologists outside academic institutions. SL proposed the drafting of the manuscript, created the original outline, wrote the section compensation and made critical revisions to the manuscript. All authors approved of the manuscript prior to submission.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Shetal Shah.

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Competing interests

SL is currently a member of the Subboard of Neonatal. Perinatal Medicine at the American Board of Pediatrics (ABP). He is also the chair of the clinical care committee of Association of Medical School Pediatric Department Chairs (AMSPDC). Elizabeth Crouch is the Research Chair of the Trainees and Early Career Neonatologists group in the Section on Neonatal Perinatal Medicine of the American Association of Pediatrics. CS is currently the Chair Elect for the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), Section on Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine. PM is on the Council of Pediatrics Subspecialist (CoPS) executive committee and serves on the Organization of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine Training. Program Directors (ONTPD) executive as the immediate past chair. The views expressed by the authors is their individual view and does not represent the official position of AAP, ABP, AMSPDC, CoPS or ONTPD.

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Shah, S., Myers, P., Enciso, J.M. et al. Should neonatal-perinatal medicine move to two-year fellowships?. J Perinatol 44, 1222–1227 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41372-024-02020-3

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