By Edward Doyle Fellows exploring the market for subspecialist jobs are discovering that the competition is so fierce that they have to work harder to get jobs that were easy to obtain not so long ago.
All signs indicate that the job market for new subspecialists is shrinking.
According to those who track the subspecialty job market, fellows preparing to look for their first job need to understand that the competition is intense. Stephan R. Targan, FACP, director of gastroenterology and the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and a professor of medicine at the UCLA School of Medicine, said that expertise in common ailments like ulcer disease is no longer enough to guarantee a job. Freshly trained gastroenterologists need to learn as much as they can about advanced biliary and endoscopic technologies to give themselves an edge, he said. Dr. Targan noted that while sophisticated scopes are typically found in large academic medical centers, a newly trained fellow familiar with the latest technology could be very desirable for a large community hospital or group practice interested in performing these procedures itself. Dr. Targan said that while many gastroenterologists consider themselves IBD experts, the field is moving so quickly that a physician with advanced knowledge could have an edge.