Arrowhead AOA psych program?

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[heyjack70]

I know it's away from your topic, but regarding aoa psych residencies on the West coast. I have had some contact with the program in Corvallis over the last several years and it seems they have a good core group of attendings and the intern year is not a killer, from what I hear. They were recently dual aoa/acgme certified as well, so you can match into acgme fellowships.
What I'm really saying is it seems like a good lifestyle program/city, though it's not in SoCal.

 

[shojimoji]

thanks, but really only looking for southern california. i cannot stand the cold weather of anything north of bakersfield lolz

 

[PistolPete]

It's a small program, 2 residents per year I think. Seems they work decently hard from what I've heard, including call up through 3rd year and maybe even 4th year if I remember. Pretty much a county program with MediCal patients. No ECT or child or adolescent I believe, but I could be wrong.

 

[shojimoji]

Tis a small program, 2 residents per year I think. Seems they work decently hard from what I've heard, including call up through 3rd year and maybe even 4th year if I remember. Pretty much a county program with MediCal patients. No ECT or child or adolescent I believe, but I could be wrong.

thanks for the info! it seems they work about as hard as some IM programs lol

it seems like they work residents super hard. i heard they have increased class size to 3 now.

 

[Anduin]

One of their residents was recently trying to tell me how great their schedule was. Short call q4. 2 weekends 8am-8pm per month. As 2nd year, you work 24 hour shifts q4 days. 3rd year 24 hour shifts q6. And 4th year every 12 days. First year is 4 months IM, 2 neuro, 6 inpatient psych. Second year is 6 months ER 6 months C&L. Seems pretty bad.

 

[shojimoji]

One of their residents was recently trying to tell me how great their schedule was. Short call q4. 2 weekends 8am-8pm per month. As 2nd year, you work 24 hour shifts q4 days. 3rd year 24 hour shifts q6. And 4th year every 12 days. First year is 4 months IM, 2 neuro, 6 inpatient psych. Second year is 6 months ER 6 months C&L. Seems pretty bad.

Yeah that seems so "great" and "chill" to me lol.

I hope he was being sarcastic when he told you that. I would rather go somewhere else, staying in California is not worth such a miserable schedule... this seems even worse than the UoA Tucson South Campus program.

one of the reasons i know a lot of peeps choose psych aside from interest is the mental balance u dont get with other specialties.

 

[notdeadyet]

One of their residents was recently trying to tell me how great their schedule was. Short call q4. 2 weekends 8am-8pm per month. As 2nd year, you work 24 hour shifts q4 days. 3rd year 24 hour shifts q6. And 4th year every 12 days. First year is 4 months IM, 2 neuro, 6 inpatient psych. Second year is 6 months ER 6 months C&L. Seems pretty bad.

This is a rough schedule by any psych yardstick. Oi...


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[Psycho01]

I am a resident at this program. In truth, I can't advise you enough to steer clear of this place. The hours are terrible, the call is brutal, there is very little teaching, and the program director does not support residents at all. The diversity of patients and the pathology seen is great, but the atmosphere for training is not good at all. You will hardly ever round on consults with an attending-nearly all consults are chiefed by talking over the phone about the patient and they won't discuss patients with you at bedside or actually lay eyes on the patient or their labs or their chart, even if it a fascinating psych case that would be great for learning. There is absolutely no psychotherapy training at all. Our PD feels that "normal clinical encounters" constitutes enough training in psychotherapy, even if it is just for med management. I am usually a very positive person and I truly love psychiatry and the patients I care for, but I would absolutely not come here if I could do it all over again. The morale with residents has gotten really bad and I would consider some aspects of the program malignant. Living in SO Cal is great, but not worth it.

 

[so721]

I am a resident at this program. In truth, I can't advise you enough to steer clear of this place. The hours are terrible, the call is brutal, there is very little teaching, and the program director does not support residents at all. The diversity of patients and the pathology seen is great, but the atmosphere for training is not good at all. You will hardly ever round on consults with an attending-nearly all consults are chiefed by talking over the phone about the patient and they won't discuss patients with you at bedside or actually lay eyes on the patient or their labs or their chart, even if it a fascinating psych case that would be great for learning. There is absolutely no psychotherapy training at all. Our PD feels that "normal clinical encounters" constitutes enough training in psychotherapy, even if it is just for med management. I am usually a very positive person and I truly love psychiatry and the patients I care for, but I would absolutely not come here if I could do it all over again. The morale with residents has gotten really bad and I would consider some aspects of the program malignant. Living in SO Cal is great, but not worth it.

I don't know about the morale getting worse, IMO. But I have a friend who was applying to the IM program, now that is dually acreditted, its not supposed to be as malignant as it once was. In fact, one of the APD's there todl him, that arrowhead is no longer considered "arrow-hell".

 

[whopper]

I remember at one program I interviewed at they told me something to the effect you "You only have to do XXX hours." They were the ACGME maximum hours. In truth most places that push you to the brink actually have you working more than the allowable maximum hours cause BS happens. E.g your hours may have ended but you had no time to write notes so you'll now be stuck in the hospital another 2-3 hours on top of the maximum per day to get them done.

 

[Psycho01]

I don't know about the morale getting worse, IMO. But I have a friend who was applying to the IM program, now that is dually acreditted, its not supposed to be as malignant as it once was. In fact, one of the APD's there todl him, that arrowhead is no longer considered "arrow-hell".

I am just referring to psych program, not the place in general.

 

[so721]

I remember at one program I interviewed at they told me something to the effect you "You only have to do XXX hours." They were the ACGME maximum hours. In truth most places that push you to the brink actually have you working more than the allowable maximum hours cause BS happens. E.g your hours may have ended but you had no time to write notes so you'll now be stuck in the hospital another 2-3 hours on top of the maximum per day to get them done.

For those of us who are slow typers that turns into 6 hours plus

 

[microshar88]

Are there any current residents in this program who can chime in? How is the workload now that the program has expanded?

 

[GUH]

Are there any current residents in this program who can chime in? How is the workload now that the program has expanded?

I don't think that the current class of first-year residents has expanded to more than two.

 

[sunshine1160]

I think when I last checked they have expanded the number of residents to 4 in PGY2 & PGY1 currently. I wonder if things have changed. It would be pretty nice living in Southern california, but the schedule mentioned above seems to suggest you'll be spending more time in the hospital working.

 

[sunshine1160]

Bump, can anyone, perhaps a current resident, comment on the current status of the program?

 

[sunshine1160]

I hate to bump this again, but can anyone comment as to the current status of the program? I know that they have expanded the number of residents and I'm guessing the workload has gotten better as a result.

 

[InvegaSustenna]

Why don't you try to match acgme if you absolutely have to stay in SoCal? Rotating at programs will help. Did you take the usmle?
I interviewed at arrowhead and the residents seemed pretty miserable due to workload. Plus there's no ECT.

 

[waterflying]

I did a rotation at arrowhead. You get good exposure, lots of acute care, tons of volume. Schedule wasn't too bad IMO. Good pathology. Some of the cons include lack of psychotherapy training, call schedule was on the more intense side, some of the residents seemed less happy than others, little to no child and adolescent. Overall though, I think anyone who does that residency will get a strong/solid training in psychopharm based psychiatry, and that you should be able to handle almost anything that comes through the door once you complete your training.

 

[sunshine1160]

Why don't you try to match acgme if you absolutely have to stay in SoCal? Rotating at programs will help. Did you take the usmle?
I interviewed at arrowhead and the residents seemed pretty miserable due to workload. Plus there's no ECT.

I didn't take USMLE unfortunately. I think there are a lot of even ACGME programs that don't do ECT

 

[sunshine1160]

Can someone PM me about this program if you feel more comfortable that way?

 

[serimeri]

Have heard miserable things about this place, but it is in California so take it for what its worth?

 

[gibits]

I graduated from this program about three years ago so my info might be dated.

I entered as a second year transfer from IM/FM program. At the time the program lost it funding from the county and got picked up by the state. This resulted in a lot more mandatory rotations in Patton State hospital for senior residents. If you plan on going into forensic psych then this program is perfect for you as no pysch program offers (more like forces) more foresnic psych than this one. However, if you dislike or don't care for foresnics than you may have a really boring time. At worst you might get assaulted by real killers (I mean killers in the literal sense). While I was there two attendings were assaulted on the grounds.

The call schedule was not great. In fact, it sucked. q4 for 1-2 year and q6 for 3-4 year. q6 is often worse if you get call on Sunday and then get call on the next Saturday which really really sucked. You will learn to git gud fast, admits can come at you in waves and it will toughen you up. The population is often very sick with poor compliance, you will get to know the patients very well thanks to the revolving door. Keep a think hide though as it is easy to feel your efforts are futile in the long run. And hope you like meth heads. You will see a lot of them in the Inland Empire.

The attending at the hospital are pretty cool and willing to teach. The program director could be pretty autocratic most of the times but I remember one instance where he really stood up for me. I took 2 days off from my Neuro rotation after daughter was born. My Neuro attending was really pissed about this and complained to my PD. My PD told to shove off, I just had a baby. It was really cool of him.

There is child psych but it was all outpatient at the county mental health. That attending really didn't like me for some reason. But the work itself was very easy.

Outpatient was also with the county. It was fun and they have a clozaril clinic for some very sick people. Lots of injections too. The main draw back is that you will be using older drugs since it is Medi-cal. No fancy new drugs, haldol and risperdal all day, unless you like filling out PAs all day.

Consults and liaisons is the most fun since there is little to no supervision. Some don't like this but I loved it. You do your consult, call the attending on the psych ward and run it by them. If you're lucky you only have to do 4-5 consults the whole day and just chill in the cafe or flirt with the nurses. Some of my favorite cases were in C&L like the guy on the burn unit who lit himself on fire for YouTube likes.