PhD/PsyD Here is the letter to congress to address VA concerns!

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Jon Snow said:
We have expanded professional schools of psychology to capitalize on the demand to be psychologists from prospective students who:
a) could not get into a funded phd program
b) could get into a funded phd program, but bought into marketing lies told by A)
c) could get in but were unwilling to make sacrifices like moving from whatever precious city they lived in. . .

. . .at the expensive of:

1) creating the internship imbalance, decreasing our ability to adhere with APA standards, lowering the quality of practice
2) saddling more than half of new practitioners with 6 figure debt
3) decreasing leverage for job negotiations which decreases pay and benefits (e.g., retention and signing bonuses, moving expenses, free healthcare, loan repayment), and decreases choice on where to live
4) decreasing the average quality of life for psychologists (delaying housing purchases, crappier houses, and cars, delaying marriage and children, etc. . .).
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Just my opinion...

To a, b, and c.....Perhaps....but what some folks seem unable to comprehend, there are indeed those who truly desire to go to a Psy.D. program as opposed to a Ph.D. program for none of these reasons.

To 1) There may be an imbalance...but are Psy.D. candidates really taking away slots from Ph.D. candidates? Or perhaps are QUALIFIED candidates getting the slots, no matter their degree? In looking at the internships relating to my interest, there seem to be a fair number of Psy.D. candidates getting APA internships over Ph.D. candidates....In the match thread, there seem to be a fair number of Ph.D. candidates that fail to match...some several times....are you suggesting that unqualified Psy.D. candidates took these slots from qualified Ph.D. candidates?
As far as quality of practice...I don't know....do you know of any studies that support this? I would be very interested in reading them, then forming an opinion.
2) It is their debt, not yours....why would you be concerned about that?
3) Are unqualified psychologists taking jobs from qualified ones? That is certainly not the case with the largest employer of psychologists....what about Universities, research centers, etc. Again, any studies?
4) How? Again...any studies?
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NHpilot, you have asked these questions before. And they have been answered. Let it go.

And with regards to debt: You think a person's debts has no effect on other people? Really?!
 
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3 and 4 are just simple economics man. If you have no leverage in a contract negotiation (i.e., under loads of debt and desperate for a job to not default) you cannot hold out for higher pay, more benefits, etc. In the end this leads to a decline in compensation. Now, this is multi-factorial with the rise of social workers delivering group therapies and whatnot, but a glut of people with high debt loads and poor financial planning sense doesn't help the picture.

If you want some measures about the quality of the people in these programs check the EPPP pass statistics. An indirect measure, yes, but g' and grad school prep play into that score, and it is scary for some FSPS's.
 
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NHPilot said:
Just my opinion...

To 1) There may be an imbalance...but are Psy.D. candidates really taking away slots from Ph.D. candidates? Or perhaps are QUALIFIED candidates getting the slots, no matter their degree? In looking at the internships relating to my interest, there seem to be a fair number of Psy.D. candidates getting APA internships over Ph.D. candidates....In the match thread, there seem to be a fair number of Ph.D. candidates that fail to match...some several times....are you suggesting that unqualified Psy.D. candidates took these slots from qualified Ph.D. candidates?
As far as quality of practice...I don't know....do you know of any studies that support this? I would be very interested in reading them, then forming an opinion.
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This question has been asked a lot before, myself included. You have to think about it on a more holistic scale. Let me explain the reasons that increased PsyD students in the pool ultimately hurts even the students from programs with good match rates.
1. Increased number of applications, resulting in less time for the sites to read through them. Therefore, sites may screen out people based on one or two small criteria who would have otherwise been great matches. Someone on SDN explained it to me as thinking of the imbalance as like a huge DDOS attack on the system, and that's the best way to capture this idea. It just overloads the system.
2. Some of these professional school PsyD students will have good credentials and be competitive for APA accredited slots (you only have to read SDN to see that). So, think about it this way. Even if 50% of a 50 cohort classes matches to an APA accredited spot, that is still 25 people. Think of how many professional schools there are across the country that participate in the match, and how big those cohorts tend to be (50 is even a small number from what I've seen). It adds up to a huge number, even if a small percentage of each school matches to an APA accred site.
3. You may be wondering "Well, there are sites that don't take PsyD students so that should be fine, right?" Well, so imagine that a FSPS PsyD student matches at, say, a counseling center. Then you have a student from a PhD program* who wanted that counseling center, but instead matches at an AMC that doesn't interview PsyD students. And then you have a third PhD student who really wanted that AMC, but now that spot is taken by that other PhD student. And then maybe that PhD student matches at a VA, displacing another student who really wanted a VA spot. So everyone's down by one spot, and actually down by much more in reality (because everyone ranks multiple sites). In the end, people will get pushed out, and not just the FSPS students. Do you see where I'm going with this, hopefully?

*I'm saying PhD to save effort, but really any student from a program with a good match rate. Including uni-based PsyD programs.
 
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Asked yes...answered no.....just anecdotal comment and "my way is the only way" rhetoric.
I truly do not want an argument, and certainly know that ingrained opinion won't be changed. I was just asking for empirical evidence so that I myself may make an informed decision. And I have yet to see any. "It's simple economics man" certainly does not appear to offer any definitive arguments.
I am in no way advocating the FSPS model...I am merely inquiring about comments made regarding internships and the degradation of the profession.
For example....Mike Parent's research....it's great and I respect it greatly. Well thought out research and conclusions are so much more convincing than blanket statements containing no facts.
How many of you have stepped up and gotten involved with the APA and your local and professional organizations to address the issue. I absolutely agree that APA internships should be mandatory....I absolutely agree that a program's accreditation should be contingent upon match rates, which seems to me to be a pretty good indication of program effectiveness....I absolutely agree that there should be more APA internship slots/sites. How many of you working at places without an internship program are working towards creating such a program?
I in no way wish to be confrontational....quite the opposite in fact....There are those on this site with Psy.D. degrees who have succeeded and excelled in this profession, whom I admire greatly...as I do other members with Ph.D degrees. There is very good information to be gained on here.....but unfortunately there also seems to be an "us against them" mentality that is unfortunate. Almost as if the forum should be split into two separate ones....a Ph.D one and a Psy.D. one....
So yes, erg....I will let it go...I just hope that in the future someone could provide the empirical data that helps to form an informed opinion.
Thank you.
 
I absolutely agree that there should be more APA internship slots/sites. How many of you working at places without an internship program are working towards creating such a program?
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Many SDNers are involved in APA/APAGS or other groups that are working on addressing the imbalance. Complaining about it on SDN doesn't prevent you from making real, productive efforts as well. ;) And I know from my own experience that it's a messy, highly political issue and can cause a lot of frustration.

In the end, it's ultimately a numbers game and everyone admits that as well. So there are two possible solutions:
1. Increase spots
2. Decrease applicants

Research has shown that you'd have to add over 2,000 spots to fix the imbalance. Is that even feasible? And then there's the question of: even if we did add these spots, would FSPS just admit more people? And can the job market really accommodate 2,000 more psychologists? I personally think that adding more spots would just move the bottleneck from the Match to somewhere else, like post-doc apps or the job market.

Also, yes, this IS not just an empirical issue for me. It's deeply personal. I just went through the Match and really, it sucked. It majorly sucked. Everyone on SDN knows that the system is broken, but I'm not sure you really can understand HOW broken it is until you go through it, yourself.
 
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cara susanna....thank you so much for the thoughtful reply...it is greatly appreciated....

Please believe my when I say I am in no way a fan of the FSPS system....and I believe wholeheartedly that the APA needs to address this situation quickly and firmly and agree that accreditation should be tied in with match rates for all programs...but the FSPS system has hugely deep pockets and money talks unfortunately with even the APA and it doesn't seem that this would happen soon if at all.

In regards to weeding candidates out by certain criteria...this will always be the case...and if a candidate is weeded out by that criteria, doesn't that mean that a candidate meeting that criteria will be a more qualified candidate no matter the program they are attending?

I am wondering...is there any information breaking down the pass rate of the EPPP according to APA internships and degrees like that breaking down the program pass rate?
 
WisNeuro said:
Match rates and EPPP pass rates are empirical evidence of quality. Feel free to look past those and towards confirmation bias if you prefer.
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Word...

And, empirical evidence of what, exactly? If you want something to say that patient worse outcomes are correlated with FSPS graduates, you aint gonna find it. If you want empirical evidence that many FSPS Psy.D have less clinical training, lower academic credentials (GPA, GRE), lower rates of passing the national licensing exam, more likely to practice non evidence-based intervention, then you got it.
 
Cara susanna....I have read the match threads and it is truly heartbreaking.....especially reading of those who go through programs with excellent to perfect match rates yet do not match.....I cannot even imagine having to endure such a thing...and yes I agree with you that until you actually go through the process, you cannot truly understand it.
 
WisNeuro said:
And, if we keep adding slots for a profession that has no shortage of professionals, what do you think happens to salary, quality of applicants, etc?
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I agree one hundred percent....something must be done to curtail programs with abysmal pass rates.
 
I just wanted to apologize for moving the topic away from the original....Thank you for the patience and thoughtful replies.
 
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NHPilot said:
cara susanna....thank you so much for the thoughtful reply...it is greatly appreciated....

Please believe my when I say I am in no way a fan of the FSPS system....and I believe wholeheartedly that the APA needs to address this situation quickly and firmly and agree that accreditation should be tied in with match rates for all programs...but the FSPS system has hugely deep pockets and money talks unfortunately with even the APA and it doesn't seem that this would happen soon if at all.

In regards to weeding candidates out by certain criteria...this will always be the case...and if a candidate is weeded out by that criteria, doesn't that mean that a candidate meeting that criteria will be a more qualified candidate no matter the program they are attending?
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Again, you kind of have to think of it like a chain of reactions. Because the imbalance scares people, and rightly so, they apply to many sites--I myself applied to 21, I admit. Some of these sites are going to be "backups" for this candidate, as in they 100% and beyond meet the site's stated cutoffs. Sites do like to interview a certain number of people, so I imagine that their cutoffs would have to change if not enough people met them. Furthermore, some sites adjust screening criteria based on standards that change year to year (such as cutting out the bottom third of candidates according to, say, F2F hours), so having more competitive applicants with higher stats would impact that standard. And if sites didn't have so many applications, maybe they wouldn't have to use as many blanket cutoffs.

Also, I've been told by people who review applications that there are just way too many, and too little time. If sites had less applications, they'd have more time to read through each one and perhaps spot something about an applicant that they like, that they would have missed had they either not read that one essay or skimmed through it.

I've seen a lot of SDNers discuss the issue of limiting applications, and it's an interesting one. But, really, number of sites is the one thing that applicants can control, sadly (well, barring financial reasons).
 
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Can I ask.....why is it so difficult to tie match rates to accreditation?....Is it primarily the money thrown at the APA by FSPS?
 
NHPilot said:
Can I ask.....why is it so difficult to tie match rates to accreditation?....Is it primarily the money thrown at the APA by FSPS?
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That's one reason. The other is that right now the APA cannot yank accreditation for only one program issue.
 
cara susanna said:
Again, you kind of have to think of it like a chain of reactions. Because the imbalance scares people, and rightly so, they apply to many sites--I myself applied to 21, I admit. Some of these sites are going to be "backups" for this candidate, as in they 100% and beyond meet the site's stated cutoffs. Sites do like to interview a certain number of people, so I imagine that their cutoffs would have to change if not enough people met them. Furthermore, some sites adjust screening criteria based on standards that change year to year (such as cutting out the bottom third of candidates according to, say, F2F hours), so having more competitive applicants with higher stats would impact that standard. And if sites didn't have so many applications, maybe they wouldn't have to use as many blanket cutoffs.

Also, I've been told by people who review applications that there are just way too many, and too little time. If sites had less applications, they'd have more time to read through each one and perhaps spot something about an applicant that they like, that they would have missed had they either not read that one essay or skimmed through it.

I've seen a lot of SDNers discuss the issue of limiting applications, and it's an interesting one. But, really, number of sites is the one thing that applicants can control, sadly (well, barring financial reasons).
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I can absolutely see the validity of this....especially since I believe there is much more to a person and what they can contribute beyond what can be measured quantitatively in a transcript.
 
WisNeuro said:
My take on the letter. You will notice they highlight the VA scheduling problems in the news and the shortage of psychiatrists. They then move on to the completely separate and wholly unrelated issue of psychologists in the VA and accreditation. They are trying to capitalize on fear and misdirection to push a dangerous agenda of letting unprepared practitioners into the VA. This is truly a shameful smoke and mirrors move by the ABMP.

Edit* I believe this is a deeper issue. I do agree that we should allow RxP within the VA. I do not believe that we should lift the accreditation standards. I imagine there are plenty of RxP eligible psychologists who went to quality internships and grad programs. We don't need a flood of poorly trained Argosy/Alliant people who took a bunch of online classes in the system.
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Which interestingly enough, Jerry Morris went to Alliant.
 
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Another thing I'll add--in reviewing applications from some of the "chronic offender" programs, it definitely seems that said programs (or at least some of them) are attempting to "teach to the test" so to speak by having students' transcripts peppered with multiple fancy-sounding courses. However, when probed, you find out that said "courses" are actually two- or three-day "workshops" that in no way could have taught much substantive information on the topic at hand. This can lead to folks who present better on paper than their true competency and training would justify.

It's unfortunate for all involved--for the applicant, because if they're selected, they come in and are expected to know things that they likely don't, which sets them up for frustration and potential failures; and for the program, because they're then saddled with the job of needing to help this student play catch up to get to where they should be (or end up booting them from internship, which I've heard of happening in rare instances).
 
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In addition the excellent comments be others, I'll add that I very much dislike the idea that we shouldn't reduce the number of applicants because there are some places with mental health care provider shortages. Almost all of these problematic programs exist in high desirability areas, like southern CA or Chicago, where there are surpluses of mental health care providers, if anything. These programs feed substantially off people who are unwilling to live anywhere that isn't one of a handful of huge cities and so are willing to take out massive loans to get questionable training in a location of their choosing. You can't tell me someone who wouldn't leave LA for training--massive red flags and massive debt be damned--dis suddenly going to decide to move to Lima, MT, for a job. Similarly, people who can't leave SD or SF due to personal/family reasons and who chose an FSPS because "they really want to be a psychologist anyway" are going to be any more willing or able to move to rural area for a job after training. FSPS aren't helping this problem at all--if anything, they're making it worse by flooding already flooded markets.
 
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WisNeuro said:
Not really. See my later post. An anecdote is not evidence. Would you like me to produce several Alliant grads who do not work in psych to disprove that logic?
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Not sure if this is flattering or not to say, but my statement had no "logic" intended. I was simply pointing out that he earned multiple master's degrees and his Psy.D. from Alliant, think of this information as you will. There was neither negative or positive value attached to my statement. More like a FYI.
 
WisNeuro said:
Maybe, but placing it in the argument at the place it was implied that it was evidence for his prestige.
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It could also be construed as an insult :p. But I can see both connotations.
 
LOL....I read it as a dig....because he went to alliant he was advocating opening the VA to those students without apa internships....
 
CogNeuroGuy said:
It could also be construed as an insult :p. But I can see both connotations.
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His postdoctoral MS Clinical Psychopharmacology degree is from Alliant. His PsyD is from FIPP. He is highly respected and has held APA offices. He owns his own mental health corporation with a number of hospitals and CMHC.

I believe he is very wealthy and I seriously doubt he would ever work in the VA. He was President of the MO psychological association.

I believe he graduated from FIPP before they were APA accredited, so he is an example of a psychologist from a non APA program that probably is in the top 1% income for active psychologist.





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What is the purpose of that post?
 
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This ain't the biography channel lol.
 
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He is licensed in LA and to be a medical psychologist in LA you have to go through the postdoctoral clinical psychopharmacology MS degree program through Alliant University. It was not that he got an MS at Alliant before he completed his doctoral degree at FIPP. He finished up his PsyD in the 80's. He is in his 60's and a very successful psychologist and highly respected as is Jack Wiggiins.
Hopefully you aren't confused or befuddled no more.


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OneNeuroDoctor said:
He is licensed in LA and to be a medical psychologist in LA you have to go through the postdoctoral clinical psychopharmacology MS degree program through Alliant University. It was not that he got an MS at Alliant before he completed his doctoral degree at FIPP. He finished up his PsyD in the 80's. He is in his 60's and a very successful psychologist and highly respected as is Jack Wiggiins.
Hopefully you aren't confused or befuddled no more.


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Stop. If you want to write bios, do it somewhere else. If you dont want to engage in the debate, then dont.
 
WisNeuro said:
As a point of information, what you are doing is a logical fallacy Oneneuro. It is an "argument from authority," essentially the converse of an ad hominem. It weakens your overall argument.
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Wiseneuro is a highly accomplished post-doctoral fellow in neuropsychology. He attended a well respected Ph.D program and was well liked by his classmates. He recently aquired a job in the VA as staff neuropsychologist. He is well published in the field and lifts weights regularly. He is highly respected poster on SDN.
 
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I can't believe how a "FYI" piece of information has evolved into such hostile, snobbery. Let it go, for Christ's sake, let it go. Nothing will get accomplished by debating why someone posted a random piece of FYI information. You folks are thinking way to deep/much about it. It's a forum, where the exchange of ideas and opinions can flourish, let's leave it at that. I suppose if I said "rabbits are animals" someone would start quoting me some profound text from a famous neuropsychologist and tell me why I am lesser than they are in intelligence.
 
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CogNeuroGuy said:
I can't believe how a "FYI" piece of information has evolved into such hostile, snobbery. Let it go, for Christ's sake, let it go. Nothing will get accomplished by debating why someone posted a random piece of FYI information. You folks are thinking way to deep/much about it. It's a forum, where the exchange of ideas and opinions can flourish, let's leave it at that. I suppose if I said "rabbits are animals" someone would start quoting me some profound text from a famous neuropsychologist and tell me why I am lesser than they are in intelligence.
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I think it because that poster has a habit of using appeal to authority arguments as an aspect of why they must "have a point." I called it out because I dont care how old Jack Wiggins is and neither should you. Its pointless and deflects from having to answer any sort of pointed questions that I and other posters have asked of this person regarding their support of the petition.
 
WisNeuro said:
It clearly wasn't just an FYI. It was stated in a way to lend credence to a side of the debate. And, we weren't questioning your intelligence, just your use of logic. Different constructs.
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In a prior post I had mentioned, there was no "logic" intended behind my statement. The comment could have gone either way if taken or construed however you wanted, but I believe you had not only construed it in a negative manner, you managed to pull some "unique" information from just one sentence. I thought it was a nice tidbit to add in in case others didn't know his background, so I simply stated. But I think it is going to far when someone starts to get defensive.

WisNeuro said:
Not really. See my later post. An anecdote is not evidence. Would you like me to produce several Alliant grads who do not work in psych to disprove that logic?
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"Why would you need to produce anything?"I didn't ask you to, I didn't challenge your manhood on this. Again, the "An anecdote is not evidence," I am not using my statement as a form of evidence, it literally is as simple as it looks, just a piece of FYI information.
 
CogNeuroGuy said:
It's a forum, where the exchange of ideas and opinions can flourish
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The use of logical fallacies to support your argument is inconsistent with this assertion. Good ideas can flourish, yes. Bad ideas (such as the idea that someone's age has something to do with much of anything, or the inference that people who have been APA presidents cannot be wrong about something also) can be put down by logic. That is the point of debate and discussion; to refine and fix ideas until they are better, not to persist with a position devolving into poorer and poorer arguments.
 
Ok, well if my comment offended anyone (which I am still dumbfounded as to how), then I rescind my comment, shame on me. But I honestly think this was blown way out of proportion. I had figured just adding to the topic that this gentleman went to a FSPS school would have been very very mild compared to the other comments and debates that were going on in this thread, but clearly my one sentence had such a profound effect.
 
Respectfully, I would disagree, I genuinely believe I was adding something of use to the argument.
 
As I read the thread, I didn't notice that anyone had posted anything in regards to Morris's background. So, after I had seen that his background was a Psy.D., coming from a FSPS institution, such a place that people on here have mixed opinions on (both positive and negative), I figured I would add that one tidbit into the stream of conversation. It was meant as a neutral piece of information in which anyone could have used for their arguments, whether it have been positive or negative.
 
WisNeuro said:
Ok, explain it's usefulness to the argument at hand.

Also, realize that you are about to contradict yourself.
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WisNeuro said:
It was not neutral, nor was it intended to be so. Especially with the phrases "highly successful" and "highly respected" thrown in. Those are far from neutral statements.
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I never said anyone of those, that would have been OneNeuroDoctor.

WisNeuro said:
Ok, explain it's usefulness to the argument at hand.

Also, realize that you are about to contradict yourself.
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Also, imagine a first time forum member coming on here with questions or reviews how you typically respond to people...as other threads I have seen, you are not one for "apologies" you stick to your guns, you're not sorry, you don't feel the need to meddle with simple folk. I feel that how you respond to certain conversations is probably unnecessary, regardless of how many board certifications someone has (just as an example). This entire time, I have been on the defense about something that you are blowing way out of proportion and handling in a condescending manner. Luckily, you have your gang of people to support you on this, so really nothing I will say will matter, but you will continue to treat people like **** because you feel entitled to do so because of your status and credentials.
 
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MCParent said:
And, the problem is that either way, use of that is an ad hominem or argument from authority fallacy. Saying "He's from Alliant so he only cares about furthering Alliant grads" or whatever doesn't relate to the validity or not of the point, nor does "He is wealthy and respected."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
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Most of that information you just stated came from OneNeuroDoctor, not me, I did not add those value-laden terms. Review my prior posts.
 
Fair enough, I will concede the first point, I have been conflating the two posters. For that I do apologize.

As to the second. I'm not here to hold hands. We are in the business of science and empiricism. I'll argue for that and for the profession for the entirety of my career. For that I make no apologies.
 
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