Did anyone enter med school with the intent on becoming a psychiatrist?

[Geekman55]

Right now I would say my main reason for going into med school is to do psychiatry. I am worried that I may not enjoy some of the other rotations such as emergency medicine, surgery, radiology etc...

I am wondering if anyone else was in a similar boat and was 90% sure on psychiatry. How hard was it to do rotations in areas you do not have as much interest?

I'll finish by saying this isn't a real big deterrent for me. I think the opportunity to see some of these other specialties may increase my appreciation for them and who knows I may decide to get matched in something other than psychiatry. I do think that cardiology would be very interesting as well as neurology.

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[Nasrudin]

Just a side note--radiology and EM are typically electives. The core rotations are internal medicine, surgery, OB, psych, family med, pediatrics, sometimes neurology. With some variation. But curriculum from pre-k to residency is pretty standardized these days.

I know lots of people who knew they were going to be psychiatrists.

You're fine as long as you realize there's a long haul before you get to psych. With very little of it in between.

 

[whopper]

I did.

 

[shan564]

I didn't go into med school with the intent of going into psych, but I did find most of my rotations to be a slog and I became fairly disenchanted with the idea of being a doctor for a while until I found psychiatry. If I'd gone in already having the knowledge that I'd end up choosing psych, I probably would have been much more content during those arduous rotations due to the knowledge that this wouldn't be the rest of my life.

 

[helm222]

I have met a few people for whom that is the case. One of them has a psych masters but dropped out before pursuing the phd. One friend of mine is almost hilariously averse to touching people... hope she gets through those six months of nonpsych in intern year ok.

 

[MacDonaldTriad]

I have many psychiatrists in my family and I was determined to never ever become a psychiatrist. Turns out I liked it and hated everything else. It is a good thing that MSIIIs are stem cells because after two years of class room, medical students don’t have a clue.

 

[wolfvgang22]

I did as well. Though it was a long, tough road I found that its been rewarding and challenging. I'm never bored. As a person with an arts background I found many topics that I was initially uninterested in, such as surgery, to be somewhat different and more enjoyable and useful in practice than I ever would have imagined during medical school. I was even briefly tempted to become a neurologist or pediatrician. However, I remained faithful to psychiatry and do not regret it.

 

[eastcoastdr]

Nope! I was set on women's health/OB-GYN. I had surgery first and after fainting in the OR 3 times, I knew I couldn't handle anything surgical. Then I thought about internal med followed by a fellowship..but I was pretty much bored to tears during my medicine rotation. When I did psych, it was like everything clicked into place. Good lifestyle, interesting cases.

 

[HarryMTieboutMD]

I was almost certain after my med school's first year course that served as an introduction to psychiatry. I affirm what Shan564 said previously. Knowing that I was going to do psychiatry helped me push through those long OR days of getting yelled at (more like passive aggressively talked down to) by attendings/residents/OR staff for not scrubbing long enough/too long, not doing it in the correct attending/resident/student/resident/attending order, cutting the knot too short or too long, not paying attention on hour 6 of a 7 laparoscopic (aka med student stands there doing nothing, sometimes holds the camera) roux-en-y reversal, etc etc etc. Now, I have a huge respect for surgeons and learned a lot on the rotation, but knowing that it was just temporary and my life would be the bliss of psychiatry helped immensely!

 

[birchswing]

Out of curiosity, since some of you have mentioned the arduousness of getting through things not related to psychiatry, how much could a psychiatrist be relied on in non-psychiatry fields of medicine if it were needed? For example, say you're stranded on a deserted island where there is only one practitioner but he/she has access to medical equipment, medicines, etc. Who would you want there for the most common medical issues you might come across, assuming they're not psychiatric issues? Like what if you needed a tracheotomy: would an RN, psychiatrist, cardiologist, etc., be better? Or what if you were trying to determine the difference between fungal and bacterial sinusitis? I guess there's an idea that psychiatry is in its own world divorced from hands-on care, but a cardiologist might not necessarily know more about sinusitis--or would they because it's "physical" and they deal in that realm?

 

[masterofmonkeys]

I went in wanting to be a psychiatrist. Actually ended up loving all of my rotations. But I went in knowing I really enjoy IM (mom's a doc), and that I chose MD over PHD because I wanted to be a physician who did psych, not just a psych person.

 

[masterofmonkeys]

Out of curiosity, since some of you have mentioned the arduousness of getting through things not related to psychiatry, how much could a psychiatrist be relied on in non-psychiatry fields of medicine if it were needed? For example, say you're stranded on a deserted island where there is only one practitioner but he/she has access to medical equipment, medicines, etc. Who would you want there for the most common medical issues you might come across, assuming they're not psychiatric issues? Like what if you needed a tracheotomy: would an RN, psychiatrist, cardiologist, etc., be better? Or what if you were trying to determine the difference between fungal and bacterial sinusitis? I guess there's an idea that psychiatry is in its own world divorced from hands-on care, but a cardiologist might not necessarily know more about sinusitis--or would they because it's "physical" and they deal in that realm?

I think that's pretty individualized. Some psychiatrists keep up their general medical chops and some don't. But the average psychiatrist as about 3x-5x the clinical training IN PRIMARY CARE of a mid-level. So there's no reason we should suck at it.

 

[Nasrudin]

I think that's pretty individualized. Some psychiatrists keep up their general medical chops and some don't. But the average psychiatrist as about 3x-5x the clinical training IN PRIMARY CARE of a mid-level. So there's no reason we should suck at it.

That said you loose what you don't use. Anyone who deals with the widest array of situations and can do procedures would generally be your go to person in any typical, ordinary, run-of-the-mill desert island plus medical equipment scenario.

I'll take an ED doc in these situations.

We are equipped for life to speak the language of general medicine and to recognize medical problems in psych patients. The question of whatever management skills remain I leave to others.

 

[masterofmonkeys]

That said you loose what you don't use. Anyone who deals with the widest array of situations and can do procedures would generally be your go to person in any typical, ordinary, run-of-the-mill desert island plus medical equipment scenario.

I'll take an ED doc in these situations.

We are equipped for life to speak the language of general medicine and to recognize medical problems in psych patients. The question of whatever management skills remain I leave to others.

Agreed Nasrudin. I just think we sell ourselves (and our patients) short when we bow out of basic primary care entirely. I'm confident in the general medical skills I DO have and work to maintain them, but I also am pretty zealous about getting more qualified personnel involved when I see something that they need. I also have an internist and an EM physician who are contractually obligated to answer my urgent consults (mom and gf lol).

But I work in a public setting and often times my patients have access to ME because of grants but not access to primary care. Other times they're difficult to build rapport with and while they trust me and their other mental health practitioners they won't go to primary care, or when I convince them to go, they fail to tell the primary care specialists what's bothering them.

If it's something obvious and simple, I think it's my duty to treat in those situations rather than throw up my hands and document that I told them to get care from someone else for it.

 

[Ceke2002]

Definitely when I was planning to enter medicine my two choices of field were either Emergency Medicine or Psychiatry. Obviously seeing as my status says 'non student' I didn't end up going ahead with my studies, but I haven't ruled out the possibility of returning to them one day and my field choice would not have changed in that case. I would still be looking at either Psych or EM.

 

[Extralong]

I entered medical psychool to be filthy filth rich, so I can sleep in a bed made out of money, use Benjamins as my toilet paper and have a green lawn.

 

[Ceke2002]

I entered medical psychool to be filthy filth rich, so I can sleep in a bed made out of money, use Benjamins as my toilet paper and have a green lawn.

If I was to ever interview for a Post Grad placement, there is no way on earth I could ever honestly answer the question 'What made you choose medicine?', so I think I'm just going to steal yours instead. Sounds like a perfectly legit reason to me.

 

[Ceke2002]

I did as well. Though it was a long, tough road I found that its been rewarding and challenging. I'm never bored. As a person with an arts background I found many topics that I was initially uninterested in, such as surgery, to be somewhat different and more enjoyable and useful in practice than I ever would have imagined during medical school. I was even briefly tempted to become a neurologist or pediatrician. However, I remained faithful to psychiatry and do not regret it.

Interesting to read of someone with an arts background, who's gone on to medicine and found the experience different to what they expected. This was a big thing in the decision making process for what I was going to do as my Undergrad leading onto Post Grad studies in medicine. I tossed up between doing an arts degree in an area I was interested in and already knew well (better potential for higher marks) and doing a more health sciences based degree such as Nursing (still potential for good grades if I worked hard enough), which I thought would be a better preparation basis going into medicine. Seeing as I have/had very little knowledge or even idea in the basics of subjects such as chemistry and physics, I figured going with the Undergrad in Nursing would serve me better in the long run. Once I'd made that decision I didn't even think of changing it. In my mind Nursing was an obvious precursor to Medicine and an arts degree might have gotten me the grades to get in, but then I expected I was going to just completely flounder, and probably fail miserably, once I moved onto Post Grad med studies. Not that I can exactly hop in my handy time machine and change the past, but the whole reason I ended up not taking the placement I was offered in Nursing was due to being in the early stages of treatment for Heroin addiction - basically I'd been clean for several months at the time, but I felt placing myself in a situation where I might be exposed to certain drugs in the course of my studies was too high of a trigger risk for me at the time. I never even considered going back on my decision to do Nursing and taking an Under Grad in a more arts focused field instead. Perhaps I should have. I know my Psychiatrist is pretty encouraging/supportive of me returning to study medicine eventually one day, I'd like to, I really would - when I'm a little more stable/able to cope with the demands of study at least. If it does ever happen I think I might seek pre course counselling to work out what the absolute best option is for me personally, rather than just working off my own assumptions about what is best. Hearing from someone who has had an arts background does give me more pause for thought that perhaps transferring from an arts basis to medicine might not be the disaster in the making I'd always (perhaps wrongly) thought it would be, at least in my situation.

 

[MeghanMD]

Me! I want to do child/adolescent psych

 

[BobbyB]

entered med school planning on being a psychiatrist.

you may not be interested in those specialties, but that doesn't mean you won't enjoy the rotation. i had a blast doing those rotations for a few months, but would kill myself if i had to do that rotation as my career. MS3 taught me a healthy respect for a lot of medical specialties.

 

[wannabie]

I entered med school planning to be a psychiatrist and learned that I like primary care more than I thought I would!

 

[DermViser]

I didn't go into med school with the intent of going into psych, but I did find most of my rotations to be a slog and I became fairly disenchanted with the idea of being a doctor for a while until I found psychiatry. If I'd gone in already having the knowledge that I'd end up choosing psych, I probably would have been much more content during those arduous rotations due to the knowledge that this wouldn't be the rest of my life.

But isn't your program pretty difficult now?

 

[shan564]

But isn't your program pretty difficult now?

I didn't find those rotations arduous because of the difficulty level of the actual work... it was that I didn't find the material interesting, so it was arduous to get out of bed and spend all day doing something that I found boring.

 

[oracle2]

See if you can get some experience on a psych ward if you haven't had any. I'm volunteering on a child psych unit at a county hospital on the weekend right now, and it is a lot more draining and depressing than I ever could have imagined... and is kind of giving me pause as to whether that is a field I would want to pursue. I would imagine outpatient is a totally different animal though... but it is very draining. I go home and go straight to bed a lot of times. I will say that the psychiatrists spend far less time with patients on the unit than the nursing staff and recreation therapists who spend their whole shift with the kids and seem to have the patience of a saint.