Many young rheumatologists also wonder if they will be able to obtain funding for an academic medical career. “After attracting enthusiastic individuals and providing research training, another limitation is the challenge of maintaining research funding to establish or support an academic research career,” says Dr. Park. “Given the current funding environment, there will be more attrition at this stage than before, without additional support or measures to protect this group, who will need to be responsible for training future rheumatologists.”
Younger investigators are at a disadvantage when it comes to obtaining financial support for research. “In the current funding environment, the money has to go to retain the senior people,” Dr. Park says, “but this means that the junior people get shut out.”
However, upcoming doctors who choose rheumatology for a specialty will have exciting and rewarding work, say Dr. Park and her colleagues. They urge senior leaders to step up efforts to promote the positive aspects of the specialty, such as flexibility for young doctors with a family. As Dr. Franchin points out, rheumatologists do not see emergency patients, so it is possible to have a more flexible schedule. Dr. Fitzgerald says the fellows who responded to his survey noted that family and child care issues, work hours, and mentoring all influenced their specialty choice.
All the young rheumatologists interviewed for this article agree that exposure to the field is critical in making a career choice. Dr. Cron says the ACR is doing more to encourage medical students to come to professional meetings to hear about fellowship opportunities and about transitioning into rheumatology practice. “This is a good time to be a rheumatologist,” says Dr. Park. “We are a valuable commodity, with all of the new treatments and the complexity of new drugs.”
As for the need for continuing emphasis on training for the specialty, senior rheumatologists can also increase their commitment, says Paul Caldron, DO, a rheumatologist in community practice in Paradise Valley, Ariz., who served on the ACR Workforce Study Advisory Group. “Community practices are an excellent base for training,” he says. “We are joining with the University of Arizona to begin fellowship training and we encourage more private practices and academic medical centers to do the same.”
Terry Hartnett is writing the workforce study series.
