ASPN - American Society of Pediatric Nephrology

We are pleased that you have decided to pursue a career in Pediatric Nephrology and have put together the following information to make the process of application and acceptance clear to you. We hope that you will the process to be simple and fair to you, the applicant, and the training programs. We have tried to achieve that goal, obtaining input from fellows and training program directors. This information has been shared with the members of the ASPN and with the General Pediatrics program directors.

Although it is likely that you are probably reading this some time during the first or second year of your General Pediatrics residency, we know that not all of you will follow this timetable. Some of you may be in med-peds programs. Others are later in your training, and still others have a "less conventional" background - MD-PhD, other specialty training, time in General Pediatrics practices, etc. Most of what follows will apply to the applicant in the first two years of their Pediatrics training, but the information can still be valuable to all applicants to a Pediatric Nephrology fellowship, with some selective reading.

Note that the ASPN as a society, the fellowship program directors, and the fellows are all aware of initiatives to unify the application and acceptance processes, including dates of those processes in all Pediatric subspecialties. Our current fellows and program directors feel that we can be equally fair to applicants with the plans outlined below. (click here for some of the reasons we feel this way). Accordingly, we suggest the following timetable for an applicant who plans to complete 3 years of General Pediatrics training:

1) Begin to investigate fellowship programs early in the second year of residency. The AAP subspecialty web site is quite helpful [ http://www.aap.org/training/nephrology/index.htm ] as is your program's pediatric nephrology group. You should try to get a sense of the emphasis of the various programs - some emphasize basic science, others clinical science. Each of these may be somewhat program-specific, for example, some may emphasize physiologically oriented research, others immunologically oriented, some may offer masters in epidemiology, others masters in public health.

2) If you plan to apply to only one or two program, determine if they wish you to use the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS). If not, you might apply in the late summer or early autumn of your second year of residency training. If you are applying to many programs, using ERAS will make this easier for you. You may want to let the program directors know of your interest in their program and your plan to use ERAS. ERAS accepts applications on November 1.

3) "For those seeking Med-Peds Nephrology training it is best to contact the programs directly to clarify application process. There is no formal certification for combined Med-Peds Nephrology programs. The programs (Internal Medicine Nephrology and Pediatric Nephrology) need to submit an individualized training program for each from the respective boards for each proposed combined trainee (typically covering 4 years).

4) Plan to interview in the winter and early spring of your second year of residency. If at all possible, try to get all your interviews scheduled over 4 - 6 weeks; this will make your selection process easier.

5) A program hoping to accept you will likely contact you within a few weeks of your interview. Some programs will complete all of their interviews; others will make offers to qualified applicants as they are identified. If you are offered a position, it is reasonable for the director of the program to give you a reasonable amount of time to respond to the offer - this should include some time for you to complete the interviews you had planned. We feel that 4 weeks after an offer is made is adequate time to allow you as an applicant to decide. Note that the current fellows and the program directors do not feel that there are compelling reasons to use a computerized matching program for this process. There are more positions available than applicants, and even those who decide late in their residencies can find training positions. Additionally, a sizeable percentage of applicants are "non-traditional" in the sense noted above. Such applicants will require more flexibility in the timing of their applications, interviewing and start of training. We do not want to disadvantage this group. The concept of a common offer date also has been considered at great length and found not to feasible at the present time. Thus, offers will therefore be made in a generally common time frame, but will not be simultaneous.

6) Once you commit to a program, preferably in writing, the others programs to which you have applied need to be informed of your decision. You and your new program director will need to make sure this happens, but ultimately the responsibility to notify the other programs is yours.

7) Starting dates at programs may be somewhat flexible. If you need to move between residency and fellowship and need to get yourself and those who move with you settled, you should feel free to ask about the possibility of a later start.

8) Fellowship programs are subject to the same work hour limitations as residency. Programs have already spent a great deal of effort to make the call schedule and work days compliant. You should not find any major change between residency and fellowship in the concepts of work hours.

9) It is required that you will have a meaningful research/scholarly experience as a fellow. The mandatory aspects of a core curriculum can be found at the ACGME web site ( http://www.acgme.org/acWebsite/home/home.asp - follow the Res. Review Committees link on the left margin down several links to Program Requirements under the Pediatrics links). The ACGME requirements also call for the progress of your scholarly experience to be monitored by a scholarly oversight committee (SOC). Each program will have developed an approach to the SOC requirement.