How do you choose a career path? Can you change the one you’re on? Unless oncologists have walked both paths, it is difficult to understand the differences between academic and community practice careers beyond differences in call schedules and misconceptions about compensation. Most oncology trainees have little exposure to community oncologists. In many communities the competition between the town (private practice) and gown (academia) has done little to facilitate mutual understanding, and often creates negative perceptions of community practice among academic trainees. Further, even after 2 or 3 years of fellowship, it is rare for trainees to sit with a faculty member and discuss the requirements of a clinical research career. The literature on this topic is helpful but sparse.1
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Desch et al. (2006) studied this question.