D.O. and Psychiatry; Competitiveness of Psychiatry in the future

[YES123]

Hi to all,
I am considering studying to go into psychiatry and am wondering whether a D.O. graduate can land a regular (by that I mean the same one's that M.D. students participate in, and no the special D.O. residencies) psychiatry residency. I know that D.O.'s sometimes have trouble getting into very competitive residencies (like Dermatology, Radiology, Orthopedics) but is the same true for Psychiatry which is much less competitive?

Also, and this is an entirely separate question. What do you folks think are the chances that Psychiatry will be much more competitive 7 years from now? Do you think it will remain an easy specialty to get into, or do you think it will get harder?

Thanks!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[notdeadyet]

I am considering studying to go into psychiatry and am wondering whether a D.O. graduate can land a regular (by that I mean the same one's that M.D. students participate in, and no the special D.O. residencies) psychiatry residency.

Yes.

I know that D.O.'s sometimes have trouble getting into very competitive residencies (like Dermatology, Radiology, Orthopedics) but is the same true for Psychiatry which is much less competitive?

No. There is no reason a DO can't match into an allopathic psych residency if they apply broadly enough.

What do you folks think are the chances that Psychiatry will be much more competitive 7 years from now?

Very likely, but all specialties are on path to become more competitive. The number of allopathic residencies spots have not changed significantly over the past few years, but the number of osteopathic medical school seats has grown significantly without a proportional increase in osteopathic residency sots.

So all residencies are likely to become more competitive if this trend continues. The most competitive fields have traditionally been the most unfriendly to osteopaths, so they may rise in competitiveness only slightly, whereas fields that see a higher proportion of osteopaths applying to allopathic residencies (like psych, family, etc.) will likely become more competitive proportionally.

That said, in 7 years is psychiatry going to be more competitive than other fields? I don't see any evidence of that. It's going to be more competitive, but it'll still be one of the least competitive fields. If other fields became noticeably less competitive, you'd see a lot of shift of folks applying there instead of psych. At the end of the day, the vast majority of people who go to medical school of any kind do so because they like physical medicine. Psych will always be a smaller subset and will self-select that way.

 

[digitlnoize]

4th year DO student here.

You can totally do psych, at least for now. I only applied to MD programs and interviewed at some great places, like: MUSC, Vanderbilt, Indiana U, U Kentucky, UVA, and on and on...

I matched at my #1 choice and was courted by several others. Totally doable.

More competitive in 7 years? If I had to guess, I'd say that psych will outpace other fields in competitiveness over the next decade. Most of that will be in the later half of that decade, as more of the recent research matures and our salaries increase due to the drastic, horrible shortage, which will be further exacerbated by the improving economy as older docs retire. Also, even if salaries don't rise much, many med students these days are looking for better hours and a reasonable work-life balance with reasonable pay. Psych provides that. Plus the intellectual stimulation, and work is fun.

Just do what you truly enjoy. Ignore the initials, naysayers, and everything else. Apply broadly to whatever that is, and if it's Derm, have some backup fields handy, lol.

 

[YES123]

Thanks for the response!

 

[JMC_MarineCorps]

3 out of the 4 recently (March 2012) matched psych residents at my program are DOs...

 

[budda10000]

Considering UCSF psych takes DO's I would think any allopathic residency is on the table. You may have to out-compete your MD counterparts by a bit but this is very doable.

 

[jjmack]

The west coast seems a little more openminded in terms of being DO friendly, but I think this is a stretch...

Considering UCSF psych takes DO's I would think any allopathic residency is on the table. You may have to out-compete your MD counterparts by a bit but this is very doable.

 

[greenlion]

The west coast seems a little more openminded in terms of being DO friendly, but I think this is a stretch...

Actually thought it was the other way around.

Irregardless though, UCSF's DO open-mindedness is probably due to their Vice Chair of Psych and Director of C/A being a DO.

 

[notdeadyet]

Irregardless though, UCSF's DO open-mindedness is probably due to their Vice Chair of Psych and Director of C/A being a DO.

Nope. He is purely Child. He doesn't hold any influence on general psychiatry residency admissions.

UCSF's open-mindedness goes back a ways...

 

[Mass Effect]

The west coast seems a little more openminded in terms of being DO friendly, but I think this is a stretch...

Why? Granted, I don't know the ins and outs of every single psych residency, but from what I saw during the interview season, no program was totally off-limits to a DO.

 

[Leo Aquarius]

Let's not kid ourselves. West coast is competitive at the big name places, UCSF included. Let's see here, UCSF has some 70 residents, only 2 of which have DO degrees. That's 3%. At UCLA NPI the number is 0. At UCLA Harbor all MDs in the past 2 classes. Stanford and UCSD have very few. That doesn't sound friendly to me.

Do-able, but you gotta be among the top DO students in the applicant pool.

 

[Leo Aquarius]

As for the future competitiveness question, when medical schools start placing more emphasis on psychiatry in their training curricula then you'll see an upswing in applicants.

 

[Frazier]

As for the future competitiveness question, when medical schools start placing more emphasis on psychiatry in their training curricula then you'll see an upswing in applicants.

How much exposure did your school provide during the preclinical years?

Our MS1 year ended with the 2-week psychiatry course...That'll be it until the 3rd year rotation.

 

[MacDonaldTriad]

Let's not kid ourselves. West coast is competitive at the big name places, UCSF included. Let's see here, UCSF has some 70 residents, only 2 of which have DO degrees. That's 3%. At UCLA NPI the number is 0. At UCLA Harbor all MDs in the past 2 classes. Stanford and UCSD have very few. That doesn't sound friendly to me.

Do-able, but you gotta be among the top DO students in the applicant pool.

Let’s tell the truth, as long as D.O. schools lack associated residencies in all major disciplines, they will continue to farm out their clinical rotations. As long as they farm out their clinical rotations, they will lack consistency in experience and grading. As long as they lack consistency in grading, their Dean’s letters will be brief and not very useful. As long as all of these things are true, they will be the place students go when they don’t get into allopathic schools (I hear all of your OMM mantra, really don’t say this unless you honestly didn’t try to go allopathic; Bueler… Bueler). As long as they remain the place students go when they don’t get into allopathic schools, the harder it will be for them to develop all of the needed residencies to create top notch residencies. It isn’t just supply and demand, but supply of very complicated interworking of research funding, clinical funding, community support, and lastly and fairly easy to come by, a bunch of students who might want to pay a lot of money to become doctors. When research support and communities, and frankly all of us view D.O. schools as equal, they will be.
Psychiatry is an easy way to get post graduate training, but don’t delude yourself into seeing this differently than it is. This hasn’t changed in a couple of generations, but if psychiatry hits the big time for some strange reason, it will look like everything else overnight.
Gosh, I’m in a bitter mood, and by the way, the emperor has no clothes… Happy 4th.

 

[budda10000]

The west coast seems a little more openminded in terms of being DO friendly, but I think this is a stretch...

Check the match for yourself, TouroCOM sent two people there a few years back. UCD has a few as does UCI. Psych, primary care, nuero, anesthesia, pnmr are among the fields DO's face little discrimination. Even General Surg and EMR are starting to open up(check UCSF fresno residents list). You will probably have to be more qualified that your MD counterparts but its doable.

 

[budda10000]

Let's not kid ourselves. West coast is competitive at the big name places, UCSF included. Let's see here, UCSF has some 70 residents, only 2 of which have DO degrees. That's 3%. At UCLA NPI the number is 0. At UCLA Harbor all MDs in the past 2 classes. Stanford and UCSD have very few. That doesn't sound friendly to me.

Do-able, but you gotta be among the top DO students in the applicant pool.

As they should be UCSF is the top medical program in the country. MD's drool to get into that place.

 

[heyjack70]

I think it is easier to match competitively in psych as a DO than other specialities, especially if you audition and people like you. That being said, I think DO's can match competitive specialties as well. From what I've seen you just have to get 245+ on USMLE step 1 and you can get anesthesia and ophtho.

 

[Dharma]

… a bunch of students who might want to pay a lot of money to become doctors. .

I don't know man. I'm paying a good chunk of change less at my D.O. school than if I were at my state M.D. school. Living expenses A LOT cheaper too but that's just regional. That said, the MD vs DO showdown is a lot less real than it's made out to be here. It exists, no doubt… but the real world and SDN don't exactly match up too well.

 

[Mass Effect]

I think it is easier to match competitively in psych as a DO than other specialities, especially if you audition and people like you. That being said, I think DO's can match competitive specialties as well. From what I've seen you just have to get 245+ on USMLE step 1 and you can get anesthesia and ophtho.

Anesthesia isn't all that competitive. But yes, DOs can match into competitive specialties, as proven by DOs who do this every year.

As for DOs and brief dean's letters, which was mentioned above, my dean's letter was 6 1/2 pages. How long are MD dean's letters?

 

[EMDO2018]

Psych is becoming very competitive, seems like everybody and their mother in the med school forums wants to do psych. I think word has caught on about the great lifestyle.

Hi to all,
I am considering studying to go into psychiatry and am wondering whether a D.O. graduate can land a regular (by that I mean the same one's that M.D. students participate in, and no the special D.O. residencies) psychiatry residency. I know that D.O.'s sometimes have trouble getting into very competitive residencies (like Dermatology, Radiology, Orthopedics) but is the same true for Psychiatry which is much less competitive?

Also, and this is an entirely separate question. What do you folks think are the chances that Psychiatry will be much more competitive 7 years from now? Do you think it will remain an easy specialty to get into, or do you think it will get harder?

Thanks!

It makes me nervous to think how competitive it will be in 4 years.

 

[MLT2MT2DO]

Psych is becoming very competitive, seems like everybody and their mother in the med school forums wants to do psych. I think word has caught on about the great lifestyle.



It makes me nervous to think how competitive it will be in 4 years.

Numbers still say otherwise.

 

[MacDonaldTriad]

3rd from the bottom for four decades and holding strong! People have been commenting on the rise of psychiatry for my entire life, but I’m still waiting. Probably more than any other specialty, psychiatry isn’t for everyone. I don’t think that will change. On the bright side, it hasn’t remained low because wages or demand has been flagging.

 

[Leo Aquarius]

In medical school, when lifestyle and job prospects are mere shadows on the wall, nobody takes psych seriously.

Then residency happens, and everyone looks at it seriously.

 

[Doctor Bagel]

Thinking about potential rising competition for all specialties, does anybody else worry about this total proliferation of schools (as noted above, schools that are poorly resourced for providing good clinical rotations) on the claim that we have a physician shortage? I'm wondering if we're getting into the law school trap where there was all sorts of data saying that law would be a growth industry, and now we have way too many lawyers and lots of bitter, angry, broke law grads. I get that residencies are the primary drive of a shortage anyway, which makes me question the scruples of people starting these new schools (there's lots of high pay at the top end of school administration). Looking at the recent history of the legal field, though, makes me skeptical of any claims of lingering shortages of anything, and the proliferation of mid-level providers are changing the demand anyway. Of course we probably created the mid-level provider problem by restricting our numbers too much.

 

[Nasrudin]

Thinking about potential rising competition for all specialties, does anybody else worry about this total proliferation of schools (as noted above, schools that are poorly resourced for providing good clinical rotations) on the claim that we have a physician shortage? I'm wondering if we're getting into the

I think setting up medical schools is considerably more elaborate than law schools. DO schools have been doing some degree of irresponsible growth by not providing clinical sites or by forgoing hospital affiliations that were more strictly regulated under the AGME or whatever it's called. But there might be a merger of these systems. I don't know the details. But there's some discussion about it on the DO forum.

But I think its just harder for our profession to proliferate to that degree. That and I'm not certain that as our economy continues to decline that demand will always be a big factor in the job market. For instance, in third world countries with a tiny middle class, there is tons of demand, but not necessarily more jobs.

 

[Baller MD]

Thinking about potential rising competition for all specialties, does anybody else worry about this total proliferation of schools (as noted above, schools that are poorly resourced for providing good clinical rotations) on the claim that we have a physician shortage? I'm wondering if we're getting into the law school trap where there was all sorts of data saying that law would be a growth industry, and now we have way too many lawyers and lots of bitter, angry, broke law grads. I get that residencies are the primary drive of a shortage anyway, which makes me question the scruples of people starting these new schools (there's lots of high pay at the top end of school administration). Looking at the recent history of the legal field, though, makes me skeptical of any claims of lingering shortages of anything, and the proliferation of mid-level providers are changing the demand anyway. Of course we probably created the mid-level provider problem by restricting our numbers too much.

I don't think the US opening more schools is much of a problem as long as residency spots stay stagnant. I mean we currently have a enough spots for a bunch IMGs to match. More US schools opening just means IMGs will receive the short end of the stick.

 

[Doctor Bagel]

I don't think the US opening more schools is much of a problem as long as residency spots stay stagnant. I mean we currently have a enough spots for a bunch IMGs to match. More US schools opening just means IMGs will receive the short end of the stick.

And this really points to the questionable reasoning for opening these new schools and for expanding class sizes.

 

[Dharma]

And this really points to the questionable reasoning for opening these new schools and for expanding class sizes.

$ad

 

[Nasrudin]

I've even heard some things about how the financial backing of current residencies is on shaky ground. Perhaps our PD's know specifics about the future of residency funding. Idk.

 

[MacDonaldTriad]

From a very self-centric view, graduating more MDs in the future will mean that psychiatry will shift from taking a bunch of IMGs who really aren’t interested in psychiatry, but cannot get into anything else to a bunch of domestic MD who really aren’t interested in psychiatry, but can’t get into anything else. We might benefit from some baseline quality improvement in background education if you believe domestic medical schools are superior, but then again, the domestic pre-graduate institutions are now busy thinning the soup.
I do think the post graduate system is expanding with growing clinical demand, but not expanding graduate interest. What is really needed is effort on improving medical school psychiatry education. It has been a few decades since I endured MSI and MSII psychiatry didactics, but they were poor. Within our department, I don’t see our best educators chomping at the bit to give medical school lectures. Everyone wants to teach residents, but the medical students are a tough uninterested audience. Rotations would also have to improve. Most schools mandate a core rotation in locked inpatient wards with very chronic patients for a few weeks. Hard to see much improvement in that setting. Who would sign up for more psychiatry after that experience?

 

[OldPsychDoc]

I've even heard some things about how the financial backing of current residencies is on shaky ground. Perhaps our PD's know specifics about the future of residency funding. Idk.

No one knows...but the bare fact is that 85% of residency program funding (including resident salaries and benefits) flows to the hospitals through various federal programs, specifically Medicare. So ANY time you hear about legislation that affects federal funding for health care programs, you'd better perk up your ears, because that means YOU, too--not just those "welfare people".

 

[OldPsychDoc]

From a very self-centric view, graduating more MDs in the future will mean that psychiatry will shift from taking a bunch of IMGs who really aren’t interested in psychiatry, but cannot get into anything else to a bunch of domestic MD who really aren’t interested in psychiatry, but can’t get into anything else. We might benefit from some baseline quality improvement in background education if you believe domestic medical schools are superior, but then again, the domestic pre-graduate institutions are now busy thinning the soup.
I do think the post graduate system is expanding with growing clinical demand, but not expanding graduate interest. What is really needed is effort on improving medical school psychiatry education. It has been a few decades since I endured MSI and MSII psychiatry didactics, but they were poor. Within our department, I don’t see our best educators chomping at the bit to give medical school lectures. Everyone wants to teach residents, but the medical students are a tough uninterested audience. Rotations would also have to improve. Most schools mandate a core rotation in locked inpatient wards with very chronic patients for a few weeks. Hard to see much improvement in that setting. Who would sign up for more psychiatry after that experience?

Having taught medical students for a few years before being set loose on residents, the expansion in numbers of "bunch(es) of domestic MD who really aren’t interested in psychiatry" really worries me. There is frequently a sense of entitlement in USMGs that I don't see in IMGs--and if you're combining that with increased disgruntlement at "having to do psych because I couldn't get into something else"...
Well, I suppose I can always retire...

 

[helm222]

It does seem to me that opening more medical schools isn't a great solution if people aren't interested in going into high demand fields. In my area, a "desirable" place to live, there is a huge demand for various surgeons and obgyns (there is literally a 4 or 5 month waiting list to see a female OBGyn here, but those aren't the most popular fields among med students these days. And it seems like primary care fields like peds and general IM will continue to be taken over by mid levels. I love peds but the mid level thing kind of scares me a bit. A lot of what walks into an outpatient office can easily be taken care of by a NP or PA. I see this happening with derm in my area and I fear the same may happen with psych.

 

[MacDonaldTriad]

Having taught medical students for a few years before being set loose on residents, the expansion in numbers of "bunch(es) of domestic MD who really aren’t interested in psychiatry" really worries me. There is frequently a sense of entitlement in USMGs that I don't see in IMGs--and if you're combining that with increased disgruntlement at "having to do psych because I couldn't get into something else"...
Well, I suppose I can always retire...

How many more years before the mortgage is paid off? I try not to think about retirement. It triggers a recurrent nightmare where I’m dementing in a nursing home and one of my students comes to evaluate me.