A member asked:

What happens if a doctor wants to switch specialties (ie. internal med to cardiology) do they have to go through a whole new residency?

7 doctors weighed in across 2 answers

Sort of: There are two types of training - residency and fellowship. They're really the same except fellowship is after initial residency training. Cardiology is a specialty after internal medicine (IM). Essentially, any change of specialty such as IM to general surgery or IM to cardiology requires training for that specialty (anywhere from 2-5 years) to be certified and practice the new specialty.

Answered 1/25/2015

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Fellowship : Cardiology is a subspecialty of Internal Medicine, requiring a three year residency, followed by a 3-5 year cardiology fellowship, depending on whether extra time is needed to learn special procedures, such as stenting or electrophysiology testing and treatment. To switch to a new internal medicine subspecialty (like gastroenterology, rheumatology, etc., a new fellowship would be required.

Answered 5/24/2015

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