DO GENERAL INTERNAL-MEDICINE FELLOWS FIND JOBS THAT MATCH THEIR TRAINING

We surveyed employers of general internists at teaching hospitals to d etermine whether they prefer that new hires are graduates of general i nternal medicine (GIM) fellowships. We surveyed former GIM fellows who graduated between 1988 and 1994 to determine whether they found jobs with protected research time and whether the positions they found matc hed their expectations. Employers rated a GIM fellowship, among other criteria, as important for clinician-researchers, but not for clinicia n-educators. For graduates categorized as clinician-researchers (with more than 33% of their time protected for research), there was a good match between their actual time allocations for research and clinical work and what they recalled their expectations were when looking for a job. Clinician-educators had a marked discordance between actual time allocations for research and clinical work and their recollection of their expectations when looking for a job.