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News -> December, 2005 News
Todd Kingdom, MD
Two years ago the American Rhinologic Society Board of Directors asked the Education Committee and its Chairman Winston Vaughan, MD to explore issues related to fellowship training in Rhinology. Beginning with a retreat in December 2003 in New York City, many aspects of fellowship training were discussed, focusing on the development of standardized application, interview, and position offer dates in order to assist candidates in their fellowship selection process. The Education Committee endorsed this concept and presented guidelines for fellowship application dates to the Board at the Spring 2004 meeting. The following dates were approved by the Board:
Interview Dates:
Evaluation and Ranking:
Offers Extended:
Program Start Date: |
March 1- June 10, 2005
June 11-13, 2005
June 14, 2005
July, 2006 |
During the 2005 COSM meeting, directors and representatives from 16 US and Canadian fellowship programs met for the first time to discuss these proposals and develop a plan for immediate implementation. Though several programs had already completed the process and made offers for their 2006 positions, interest in reshaping the entire process remained high. A wide-ranging lively discussion was had, and several high priority issues identified, the most pressing of which being implementation of the newly proposed application dates for the 2006 positions. To facilitate this, an ad hoc committee from the ARS leadership was appointed by President Jacobs consisting of Paul Toffel, MD, Past-President of the ARS, and Brent Senior, MD, Secretary-elect of the ARS, and myself as Chairman of the Education Committee. This ad hoc group was charged with facilitating the fellowship selection process by providing blinded and unbiased selection assistance for candidates and programs (Fellowship Assistance Program or FAP) according to the previously established timetable.
On May 24, 2005 19 US and 2 Canadian programs were invited to participate in the FAP, and ultimately 9 programs agreed to participate. On June 14th, the "FAP Link" occurred between the nine programs and 10 applicants. All but 2 programs successfully linked with an applicant; 6 programs receiving their 1st choice and 1 their 2nd choice. Seven applicants successfully linked with a program; 3 receiving their 1st choice, 3 their 2nd choice, and 1 their 4th choice. One applicant, however, after linking with his 1st choice program elected to withdraw from the process entirely and not pursue fellowship training.
Overall the feedback from participating program directors and applicants was overwhelmingly positive, with the major weakness being lack of "100%" participation by training programs. FAP's objective to function as a facilitator for linking programs and applicants appears to have been met with this initial effort.
Moving forward we face several challenges. We must pursue 100% program participation and create an approach that fosters such commitment. The concept of a "binding agreement" between linked programs and applicants needs to be addressed in some fashion to protect the integrity of the process. Lastly the fellowship program database needs to be refined and the next cycle of interview and application dates must be established. In order to further address these issues and others with regard to Rhinology fellowship training, a Fellowship Committee composed of one representative from each fellowship program in the US and Canada has been established. Working subcommittees of the Fellowship Committee have been created to address these last two issues and will deliver reports at the next meeting scheduled for September 23rd in Los Angeles.
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