The biggest factors that attract medical students to enter pediatric rheumatology are interest in disease pathology, the patient-physician relationship, and clinical exposure in residency, according to preliminary research shared at the annual scientific meeting of the Childhood Arthritis and Rheumatology Research Alliance.
A shortage in pediatric rheumatology already exists and is expected to worsen to 61% by 2030, noted the authors. About one-third (32%) of current pediatric rheumatologists will retire in the next decade, and less than two-thirds of fellowship slots have filled in the past 5 years.
Katherine Schultz, MD, a clinical fellow in the division of rheumatology at Cincinnati Children's Medical Center, led the study and said she was surprised that medical school exposure did not play a bigger role in attracting people to the field, but perhaps that's because too few people received that early exposure.
"If we had earlier exposure, maybe that wouldn't be definitive for saying, 'yes, I want to do this subspecialty of pediatric rheumatology,' but it would open the door, so when you hit residency, you can explore it further," Schultz said in an interview.
Dr Katherine Schultz
Schultz and her colleagues conducted a survey using the CARRA registry during September-December 2020. Respondents included pediatric rheumatology clinical fellows, early-career pediatric rheumatology faculty with less than 7 years practice experience, and mid- to late-career pediatric rheumatology faculty – those with more than 7 years of practice.
