Celebrating Hospice and Palliative Medicine as the Fifth Largest Medical Subspecialty

by Christian Sinclair (@ctsinclair)We have entered a new age! Spread the word!Hospice and palliative medicine (HPM) is the fifth largest medical subspecialty!You may have sensed we have been climbing the ranks, but I bet you are still surprised. A close look at the fellowship match data from Dec 2021, shows that HPM has the fifth highest number of matched applicants, behind the big 4: Cardiovascular, Pulmonary and Critical Care, Hematology and Oncology, and Gastroenterology.When I share this good news with HPM colleagues, few put us anywhere near fifth.I did an informal poll on Twitter and less than half of respondents ranked HPM in the top 10. Of those that did rank HPM, the average rank was 7. Clearly, we are not telling our own story very well.There are many possible reasons to feel skeptical, but yes,HPM is the fifth largest medical subspecialty! Yet, it still may not feel like that...why might that be? In general, I find HPM clinicians to be a humble, cordial bunch.We may be more introverted. We are not ones to generally boast about our accomplishments as a field. Most of that attention is often dedicated to some new technology or medicine anyway.Also, maybe we percieve oursleves to be a smaller specialty because access to HPM physicians is still highly variable. Centered in metro areas and more likely to be found wandering the halls of academia, there may be local, regional or organizational reasons why HPM has a smaller footprint in one place, while being a driving for...
Source: Pallimed: A Hospice and Palliative Medicine Blog - Category: Palliative Care Tags: fellowship sinclair The profession Source Type: blogs