The ACGME accredited program is 2 years at the successful completion of which all fellows are certified as board eligible. Recognizing that applicants have different goals, we offer two tracks:

Clinical Scholars Track

The goal of this program is for fellows to become outstanding clinical endocrinologists in either academic or clinical practice settings. This track is best suited for persons who wish the focus of their career to be sub-specialty patient care and/or medical education.

During the second fellowship year, clinical experiences are tailored to individual goals. In addition, we expect our fellows to engage in scholarly activity with the idea that they can further develop into or be recruited as super-specialists.

Want a career in medical education? There are specific course offerings through the Institute for Excellence in Education that we encourage interested fellows to take during their second year. All fellows can hone their teaching skills during specific clinical talks they give to the Osler Medicine housestaff.

The duration of training is for 2 years and is funded by the division. We currently aim to accept two fellows to this track each application cycle.

Research Scholars Track

The goal of this track is for fellows to become well rounded endocrinologists who are strongly positioned for careers as clinician scientists at academic centers whose focus is grant-funded research.  To help accomplish this, after the first year of fellowship, fellows devote most of their time to a research project under the guidance of a mentor.  In addition, we strongly encourage taking coursework to develop a strong foundation and Hopkins has a fantastic Graduate Training Program in Clinical Investigation that may be appropriate for some.

The duration of training is typically 3 years.  The third year is not part of ACGME requirements and is highly flexible. Funding for the research years comes primarily through our clinical research T32. Therefore, we encourage interested candidates to review a list of potential mentors/research.

Intensive clinical training is the primary aim of the first fellowship year. All first-year fellows divide their time between inpatient consultation services and endocrine subspecialty clinics. 

In the second year, for fellows on the clinical scholars track, the emphasis is on the ambulatory setting reflecting the fact that most contemporary practice of endocrinology and metabolism occurs in the outpatient setting.  Clinical scholars track fellows will participate in approximately 300 half-day clinic sessions over the course of their fellowship. One of these experiences is a continuity clinic where fellows maintain their own weekly endocrine consultative practice.

Fellows on the research scholars track maintain a continuity clinic in their second year of fellowship. Based on this, we expect that after 2 years of fellowship, research scholars track fellows will participate in ~150 half-day clinic sessions.

The clinics occupy modern, fully equipped offices with nursing, laboratory, and administrative support. Adjacent special procedure and conference rooms are available. Most importantly, faculty actively supervise fellows in every clinic paying great attention to their progress and guiding them to become progressively independent.

To get a sense of how time is apportioned, see a sample of a fellow’s schedule in the table below.

Vacation: 4 weeks of vacation are generally taken in 1-2 week segments during JHH clinic or JHBMC Consult+Clinic blocks

Inpatient Consults: Our fellows lead the endocrine consultative service to assist primary services throughout the hospital in the diagnosis and management of complex patients. For 5-6 weeks out of the year, our endocrine fellows take specific diabetes consult requests at JHH, primarily from surgical services. Bedside rounds occur daily. In this way our fellows get a wide exposure to complex cases. Frequently medical students or residents take electives and so there is ample opportunity to teach.

Clinic rotations: Fellows participate in clinic with our endocrine faculty in sub-specialty clinics (pituitary, adrenal, metabolic bone, thyroid, advanced endocrine cancer, diabetes, gonadal disorders/transgender medicine). In most circumstances, fellows work-up new consults so they can learn about diagnosis and initial management decisions from experts in the field.

Electives: In the second-year possible electives are: Pediatric Endocrinology, Reproductive Endocrinology, Lipid Clinic, Pituitary Clinic, Thyroid Biopsy Clinic, Nuclear Medicine Clinic, Private office rotation, Continuity clinics

We offer a robust combination of didactic lectures and clinical conferences for fellows to acquire foundational knowledge and understand nuances of clinical care.

Didactic Sessions

We believe that providing foundational knowledge from our wonderful and highly experienced clinical experts is critical to a fellow’s development. To accomplish this we provide:

Summer Orientation

a yearly intensive series of didactics (~10 lectures during orientation week and 10-12 lectures over the remainder of the summer) aimed at ensuring fellows are well prepared to function as the leaders of our inpatient consultative services

Fellows’ Curriculum Lecture Series

A lecture series (~ 21 lectures) that spans two years. These are more detailed lectures where faculty share and discuss nuances of care in their area of clinical expertise

Clinical Conferences and Specialty Group Meetings

Margolis Clinical Conferences

Weekly sessions (fall-spring) consisting of:

• Case discussions: informal discussions of active cases
• Clinical case presentations: formal presentation of challenging or unusual cases
• Journal clubs: presentation of article with focus on evaluation of study design, analytical methods and study limitations and strengths
• Pathology conference: collaboration with pathology residents to focus on highlighting critical cyto- and surgical pathology features

Endocrinology Grand Rounds

Weekly (fall-spring): presentations by faculty on clinically relevant topics and translational research.

Thyroid Tumor Center Meetings

Monthly: multi-disciplinary meeting of otolaryngologists, general surgeons, endocrinologists, radiologists, & radiation oncologist to discuss challenging cases and optimize care.

Adrenal Center Meetings

Monthly: multi-disciplinary meeting of surgeons, endocrinologists, & radiologists to discuss challenging cases and optimize care.

Pituitary Conference

Monthly: multi-disciplinary meeting of neurosurgeons, endocrinologists, pathologists & neuroradiologists to discuss challenging cases and optimize care.

Diabetes Center Meeting

Monthly: meeting of care providers and nurses to discuss protocols, recent advances, barriers to care and difficult cases.

Metabolic Bone Conference

Monthly: meeting of pediatric and adult endocrinologists, musculoskeletal pathologists, basic researchers to discuss active clinical cases.

At Johns Hopkins we have a tradition of excellence in research, clinical care and education. In all facets our faculty have become leaders through their scholarship. We believe that engaging in scholarly activity is an important part of one’s training but also a way to give back to the wider endocrine community. All fellows identify an area of concentration with a mentor with project type differing based on the fellow’s track. In terms of productivity, all fellos are enjoined to submit an abstract for presentation at a national meeting (e.g. Endocrine Society, ADA, ATA, ASBMR or AACE). Clinical Scholars often take an introduction to clinical research course. We invite you to look at our faculty profiles, to get a sense of the breadth of clinical interests within our division.

We individualize details of each fellow's program to meet her or his goals and needs. A major feature of this effort is a Mentorship Committee (MC) assigned to each fellow. The Committee consists of 3-4 faculty members who meet twice yearly to hear about the fellow's progress and to suggest routes toward a successful pursuit of his or her career goals.

The ACGME provides “milestones” based upon which a fellow’s progress is evaluated. These are discussed with fellows during formative and summative assessment. Our goal in all of this is the fellows’ growth and maturation into fantastic clinical endocrinologists.