Is there an actual ranking list of the top programs in endocrinology specialty training? So you have made a decision to further your training in medicine by concentrating your efforts in the field of hormone science. As with other subspecialty fellowship programs, endocrinology fellowships are usually offered by university programs.
In most instances, prestigious university programs tend to attract “top researchers” and, in essence, receive funds for groundbreaking discoveries. Also, the best hospitals are usually affiliated with these prestigious universities. Interestingly, as a fellow in endocrinology, this may not necessarily translate into exceptional fellowship training.
Clinician-researchers and researchers spend less time in the clinic (and the wards) compared to their laboratories, making them less accessible to fellows-in-training. Although you may be surrounded by luminaries in endocrinology, it may not translate directly into making you a better clinician. It is worth noting that your core training aims to make you a clinician first if you choose a clinical track.
If you choose the increasingly less available research track (dwindling research funding), access to these mentors may be easier in a higher tier compared to a lower tier program. In essence, a fellowship program that provides a fine balance between service responsibilities and trainee education is preferred.
Well, what does this mean? Large hospitals tend to have very busy inpatient and outpatient services; this may translate into very busy call schedules for fellows. Without disclosing the names of specific institutions, some fellows have anecdotally cited the immense service responsibilities in “top university programs.”
As a fellow in training, you need protected time for personal study, research, preparing for oral presentations, didactic sessions with attendings, etc. Although seeing more pathology enriches one’s training, excessive patient loads and incessant pages are detrimental to optimal training. In addition, an attending needs enough time to explain management plans with trainees. Fast-paced clinics and inpatient rounds leave little to no time for effective dialogue between learner and instructor.
An approach to choosing the right fellowship program
Are you interested in a research career in endocrinology? This is increasingly becoming a difficult path due to the progressively declining sources of research funds. Do not be discouraged; training in a program with a strong emphasis on research will expose you to the right mentors in the field. Most programs with research training tracks choose the T32 training grant route. To access this grant, trainees must be either US citizens or permanent residents.
If you are interested in clinical endocrinology – a path chosen by most fellows, you will need to choose a fellowship program that strikes a fine balance between service responsibilities and learning. The best way to find this out is to talk to the fellows in your program of interest during the interview process.
Find out the number of patients seen by a fellow during clinic hours, inpatient call length, and frequency. Inquire about the number of didactic opportunities with attendings during a workweek. Ask the fellows if they would choose their program if given a second chance. Find out if they are happy.
Despite the detailed advice provided as a means of discouraging the erroneous impression that hospitals ranked as high performing (patient care, funding, outcomes, etc.) offer the “best” fellowships, some may still prefer to know this list.
A list of the best endocrinology fellowships
This rank list is based on the hosting health facility’s rating (health quality metrics), research funding, board pass rates, ACGME accreditation, age of the training program. The list is not necessarily a ranking of the quality of training received by fellows. There are over 204 accredited endocrinology fellowship programs in the USA.
| Rank # | Hospital | Fellowship Resources | Research |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mayo clinic, Rochester MN | Application information | |
| 2 | Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA | Application information | R |
| 3 | UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA | Application information | |
| 4 | NYU Langone Hospital, New York, NY | Application information | |
| 5 | New York-Presbyterian Hospital-Columbia and Cornell | Application information | R |
| 6 | UCSF Medical Center, San Francisco, CA | Application information | R |
| 7 | Barnes-Jewish Hospital, Saint Louis, MO | Application information | R |
| 8 | Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, MD | Application information | |
| 9 | Montefiore medical center | Application information | |
| 10 | Mount Sinai Hospital | Application information | |
| 11 | University of Michigan Health-Ann Arbor | Application information | |
| 12 | University of Washington Med Ctr, Seattle, WA | Application information | R |
| 13 | Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH | Application information | |
| 14 | University of chicago medical center | Application information | R |
| 15 | University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA | Application information | |
| 16 | Houston Methodist Hospital, Houston, TX | Application information | |
| 17 | University of Texas MD Anderson, Houston, TX | Application information | R |
| 18 | Brigham and Wowen's Hospital, Boston, MA | Application information | R |
| 19 | Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio | Application information | |
| 20 | Cedars-Sinai Medical Center | Application information | |
| 21 | UPMC, Pittsburgh, PA | Application information | R |
| 22 | UT Southwestern Medical Ctr, Dallas, TX | Application information | R |
| 23 | Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Chicago, IL | Application information | R |
| 24 | Mount Sinai Beth Israel Hospital, NY | Application information | |
| 25 | Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, Jacksonville, FL | Application information | |
| 26 | Northshore University Hospital, Manhasset NY | Application information | |
| 27 | Vanderbilt University Med Ctr, Nashville, TN | Application information | |
| 28 | Yale New Haven Hospital, New Haven, CT | Application information | R |
| 29 | Duke University Hospital, Durham, NC | Application information | R |
| 30 | Beth Israel Deaconess, Boston, MA | Application information | R |
Now that you have had an introduction to the best approach to ranking endocrinology fellowship programs, you may be interested in training resources for fellows. This is an additional post about endocrinology advocacy (reasons to pursue a fellowship in endocrine science).
References
- https://researchtraining.nih.gov/programs/research-education/T32
- https://freida.ama-assn.org/search/list?spec=42786,42951,43481
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