Combining academic medicine and private practice: a success story

A doctor can have the best of both worlds by combining aspects of academic medicine and private practice through creating a private practice fellowship program as a hybrid approach to medical career development, providing opportunities to young doctors and enabling basic research. Doctors are traditionally classified as either academics or private practitioners in the United States. Nonetheless, there is a case to be made for creating a career path that combines both professional paths. During my fellowship at LSU, which had some aspects of its community medicine programme that were intended to mirror private practise, I was in a fantastic position to discover this. I had a great time working as a clinical and hospital fellow. My love affair with academic medicine swiftly soured after my fellowship ended. Rheumatologist was my director, and physical medicine at LSU was part of internal medicine. We were required to deliver formal presentations to some of the top experts in the globe.