Characteristics of adult hospital medicine fellowships in the United States: Across-sectional survey study.

Abstract

Hospitalists who seek academic careers are interested in developing skills in research, education, and quality improvement (QI). Since these are not major foci of residency programs, hospitalists may pursue a hospital medicine fellowship to acquire these skill sets. We sought to characterize the current state of hospital medicine fellowships in the United States, including demographics, clinical requirements, curricular focus, financial structure, and scholarly outputs. DESIGNS,SETTINGS,ANDPARTICIPANTS: This was a cross-sectional study of 32 hospital medicine fellowship programs across the United States in 2020-2021. An electronic survey was emailed to program leaders. Out of 32 eligible programs contacted, 19 (59.4%) programs responded, representing 22 fellowship tracks. Most (63.2%) programs have been in existence for 5 years or less. Fourteen (63.6%) of the tracks had multiple focus areas, while 8 (36.4%) had a single focus. Of the 14 fellowship tracks with multiple focus areas, 6 (42.8%) reported research, QI and medical education as curricular elements. All 14 reported research as one of the curricular elements. The majority (68.4%) of programs offered opportunities to obtain a master's degree, though the field of degree varied widely. A median of 50% (IQR 0) of fellows' time was spent in clinical activities.Considerableheterogeneityexists among adulthospitalmedicinefellowshipprograms.Themajority focus onresearch,QI,and/or medicaleducation.Hospitalmedicinefellowshipsofferopportunitiesfor intesive faculty development anduniquecareerpathways.