{"id":7523,"date":"2011-04-04T13:43:11","date_gmt":"2011-04-04T17:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/?p=7523"},"modified":"2011-07-19T17:44:09","modified_gmt":"2011-07-19T21:44:09","slug":"speed-dating-lunch-for-fellows-in-training-board-prep-career-development-and-financial-planning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/2011\/04\/04\/speed-dating-lunch-for-fellows-in-training-board-prep-career-development-and-financial-planning\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Speed Dating&#8221; Lunch for Fellows in Training: Board Prep, Career Development, and Financial Planning"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Several Cardiology Fellows who are attending ACC.11 this week  are blogging together on CardioExchange. The Fellows include <a href=\"..\/members\/sandeepmangalmurti663\/\">Sandeep Mangalmurti<\/a>, <a href=\"..\/members\/hansiemathelier\/\">Hansie Mathelier<\/a>, <a href=\"..\/members\/johnryan\/\">John Ryan<\/a> (moderating and providing an outsider&#8217;s view from Chicago), <a href=\"..\/members\/amitshah\/\">Amit Shah<\/a>, and <a href=\"..\/members\/justinvader647\/\">Justin Vader<\/a>.  See the <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/it-is-not-the-same\/\">previous post<\/a> in this series, and check back often to learn about the biggest buzz in New Orleans.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Free lunch! That&#8217;s all that needed to be said to attract masses of fellows. Today I attended an excellent and tasty lunch-time session for the Fellows In Training (FITs) called \u201cWhat you need to know in starting a cardiology career.\u201d It was a very informative session with several 15-minute mini-lectures (\u201cspeed dating\u201d) on a hodgepodge of different career topics. Many of the key points were practical and thought-provoking. Here I offer some \u201ctweets\u201d \u2013 needless to say, there are many important points I am leaving out&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Boards Prep by Dr. Goyal and Dr. Murphy<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> Take the boards as soon as you are eligible, and during fellowship; when you are attending, it only gets more difficult<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li> 90% of people pass the boards; if they fail, it&#8217;s usually because of the ECG section&#8230;.wait, isn&#8217;t that supposed to be our bread and butter!? We get stooped by the guessing penalty and short amount of time allotted<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li> O&#8217;Keefe is an excellent ECG book that provides many didactic ECG cases<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Know class I and III guidelines for some of the main topics<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li> Questions can be tricky: in a sense, it is a mind game between you and the question-writer<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li> If demographics are provided for an ECG, it&#8217;s because it&#8217;s an essential part of the question<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>One of the best ways to learn is to actually write practice questions<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li> Clinical trials that have been released within the last 12 years will not be covered because of the lag time between writing questions and having them appear on the test<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Careers Talks with Susan Childs, Dr. Cuffe, and Dr. Walsh<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In the face of many changes and uncertainty, many private practices are moving to the hospital-employed; strength lies in numbers<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Accountable care organizations will change the face of cardiology; read more <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/2011\/04\/01\/132937232\/accountable-care-organizations-explained\">here<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Several different estimates of average salary were given, ranging from 220K to 300K+; geography matters\u00a0\u2014 certain states such as Minnesota, Indiana, and New Hampshire offer more attractive salaries<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>All negotiating power is gone once the contract is signed; make sure to ask for a contract as well! Otherwise you may just get a signed letter<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>Academia vs. Private Practice is a complex, multifaceted debate:<\/em><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Either you are building your nest (private practice) or you are trying to climb the ranks (academia)<\/li>\n<li> Academia offers a large range of career types, from bench researcher to clinician educator to administrator<\/li>\n<li> Academia can include other, non-salary financial benefits, such as tuition benefits for children.<\/li>\n<li> Although academia is usually chosen for the opportunity to teach and do research, private practice does not entirely cut-off these opportunities. Nonetheless, in academia one is engaged in a structured, vibrant, intellectual community<\/li>\n<li>Every academic center is different: \u201cIf you&#8217;ve seen one, you&#8217;ve only seen one.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Too much protected time may be a bad thing if you cannot show for it with productivity, as justifying it may be difficult down the road<\/li>\n<li>Entering a practice in a big city is obviously more competitive and difficult; in such cases, it is important to understand the specific needs of that market<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>Last and not least, Michael Merrill and Anders Ramstad from North Star presented an excellent financial planning talk&#8230;<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Do you know your net worth? Most fellows have a net-worth average of NEGATIVE 150K<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Try to keep an emergency reserve of 3 to 6 months of expenses<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li> Debt rule \u2013 if you have any debt with greater than 8% interest, pay it off ASAP!!!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Do not finance a home for more than 3 times your salary; otherwise \u201cprepare to eat food that starts with HOT and ends with DOG\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li> Disability insurance is highly recommended<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Put away 20% in long-term saving; Roth IRA is the way to go because we are in the lowest tax bracket we will be in moving forward.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Did you attend? If so, what did I miss? Or do you have other advice that you&#8217;ve heard on these topics that you&#8217;d like to share?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>For more of our ACC.11 coverage of late-breaking clinical trials,    interviews with the authors of the most important research, and blogs    from our fellows on the most interesting presentations at the meeting,    check out our <a href=\"..\/acc-11-cardioexchange-coverage-roundup\/\">Coverage Roundup<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Several Cardiology Fellows who are attending ACC.11 this week are blogging together on CardioExchange. The Fellows include Sandeep Mangalmurti, Hansie Mathelier, John Ryan (moderating and providing an outsider&#8217;s view from Chicago), Amit Shah, and Justin Vader. See the previous post in this series, and check back often to learn about the biggest buzz in New [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":286,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/286"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7523\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}