Inappropriate to mention planned specialty in personal statement?

[positivetension-]

My goal is to be a psychiatrist, and although my mind could potentially change throughout medical school, o think it is relevant to "why I'm interested in medicine". Is it okay to include this, or should I keep it to a general interest in medicine?

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[phuynh94]

I mean, I wrote about my specialty interests, so I hope it's okay. I think if you preface it by saying you're open to exploring other specialties, you should be fine?

 

[ChrisMack390]

I would be wary of specifically psych. You never know if some surgeon is going to get your PS in his hands and laugh at you.

 

[Rainbow Zebra]

I would be wary of specifically psych. You never know if some surgeon is going to get your PS in his hands and laugh at you.

Hmm, my dad is an academic psychiatrist, and the surgeons are really happy to see him, so they don't have to deal with the difficult patients. The premed world seems to have a very skewed view of how academic medicine works with different specialities. They all bring different toys/tools to the table, and are usually respected for it.

 

[panda16]

One of my really close friends from school did that because she had mental health issues and her psychiatric therapy was so life-changing that it amplified her desire to go in to med school. So it really depends on how you weave it. Her PS was fabulous.

 

[Catalystik]

My goal is to be a psychiatrist, and although my mind could potentially change throughout medical school, o think it is relevant to "why I'm interested in medicine". Is it okay to include this, or should I keep it to a general interest in medicine?

Adcomms know that 80% of the time med students change their minds about specialty plans, so appear to be open-minded and try not to sound like nothing else could make you happy.

 

[ChrisMack390]

Hmm, my dad is an academic psychiatrist, and the surgeons are really happy to see him, so they don't have to deal with the difficult patients. The premed world seems to have a very skewed view of how academic medicine works with different specialities. They all bring different toys/tools to the table, and are usually respected for it.

There is a massive stigma against psychiatry as a medical specialty. I am not making this up...

 

[positivetension-]

If my PS would be "laughed at" for showing an interest in psychiatry, I wouldn't want to go there anyways. It sounds like you have a simplistic understanding about the admissions process.

And yes, I don't plan on giving the impression that it's the only specialty I'm interested in; moreso just a strong interest.

 

[Catalystik]

There is a massive stigma against psychiatry as a medical specialty. I am not making this up...

Where are you getting this from? Data, please?

 

[mcatjelly]

I did not explicitly say "I want to be a psychiatrist," but I did center my entire personal statement around the critical role mental health and plays in medicine and patient treatment, so I'm sure adcoms can deduce that I'm primarily interested in psychiatry (or primary care, which as of right now is my second choice). My interest in mental health is what convinced me to go into medicine, so writing a personal statement about anything else would not have been a personal statement.

I guess what I'm saying is: you're supposed to answer "why medicine?" and discussing the specialty you want to pursue doesn't exactly answer the question. But if you structure your PS in such a way that it seamlessly flows into to mention of specialty, especially one that is so underserved, then I don't think it's a terrible thing.

Disclaimer: am only an applicant.

 

[aalamruad]

If my PS would be "laughed at" for showing an interest in psychiatry, I wouldn't want to go there anyways. It sounds like you have a simplistic understanding about the admissions process.

And yes, I don't plan on giving the impression that it's the only specialty I'm interested in; moreso just a strong interest.

That's insane. You'd turn down a school, and therefore potentially a career in medicine, because one person who you don't even know mildly disrespected you? Sounds like you're not very passionate about becoming a physician.. Try to get a bit thicker skin, and learn that sometimes you might need to play the game a bit to be successful.

 

[positivetension-]

That's insane. You'd turn down a school, and therefore potentially a career in medicine, because one person who you don't even know mildly disrespected you? Sounds like you're not very passionate about becoming a physician.. Try to get a bit thicker skin, and learn that sometimes you might need to play the game a bit to be successful.

I was exaggerating because of how unlikely I think that situation would be. Obviously the (IMO, backwards) opinion of one ADCOM member wouldn't make me discount an entire school.

 

[Salt Salt]

It drives me crazy when I read posts on here (always written with a very knowing air) about how psychiatrists are looked down upon with shame by other doctors.

In my experience—after talking with pre-meds, med students, residents, attendings, and people unrelated to medicine at all—it's abundantly clear that this belief is inversely correlated with experience in medicine.

 

[ChrisMack390]

I've seen it at the hospital I work at. I know n=1, so I suppose I should have been less firm with my comments. I guess my point is that you want your application to be amenable to as many people as possible, because you never know who is going to read it.

 

[deleted702880]

There is a massive stigma against psychiatry as a medical specialty. I am not making this up...

Some doctors might think that their specialties are "better" than others somehow but it's not specific to psychiatry and you can hardly call it a stigma.

 

[Catalystik]

I've seen it at the hospital I work at. I know n=1, so I suppose I should have been less firm with my comments. I guess my point is that you want your application to be amenable to as many people as possible, because you never know who is going to read it.

An n=1 personal experience hardly equates to "massive stigma" even if you do volunteer in a psychiatric unit and have polled every psychiatrist on staff prior to coming to this conclusion. It would be more believeable to say, perhaps, the five docs you've talked to in your facility who are 40-60 years of age encountered a few negative opinions from their classmates on announcing their specialty plans xx years ago.

That said, I appreciate that you are willing to soften your initial stance on further reflection.

 

[doc05]

there's nothing wrong with being interested in psychiatry or any other specialty. It's more important that, if you decide to discuss your specialty of interest, to do so realistically. Unfortunately, most pre-meds don't have an accurate view of specific specialties, and can therefore come across as being ill-informed. so be careful.

and there is no stigma against psychiatrists. they have been some of the most helpful consultants when dealing with some of my patients.

 

[Banco]

It helps if you have experiences that really support this interest (mental health counseling exp, volunteering/shadowing with psych docs etc.)

 

[Law2Doc]

I think people are going off on a tangent. The issue isn't that you shouldn't say you are interested in psych because of anyone's possible views on psych as a specialty. The issue is that it rubs some people the wrong way when a premed with no rotations under their belt and essentially zero experience in evaluating multiple specialties already knows what they are going into. For instance, I know a surgeon who automatically deducts points from applicants who tell him they want to be a surgeon. As a third year med student you rotate through the core specialties. Until then you are wildly speculating what you'll like and dislike. Nearly every med student changes his/her mind at least once after rotations, and most of us were surprised what we ended up liking and disliking. So be really careful sounding sold on something going in. You might hate it and you might rub people in other fields the wrong way, suggesting that their rotations won't even matter to you.

 

[DesitnationMD]

Yeah, even if your mom, dad, cousin, brother, sister is a doc, or you've spent lots of time working in hospitals, we are still NOT doctors, we are not even med student yet. I think anything that comes across as "I know medicine" could rub adcoms the wrong way. If you know what drew you to medicine or psychiatry's role in medicine interests you or is part of what makes you want to be a doc work it in, but I would not just say "I want to do X specialty" because to be honest you don't know enough about it to make that decision.

I kept my PS general and didn't mention any specialty at all.

 

[Salt Salt]

What I did was this: "I find X and Y really interesting, but I'm keeping an open mind."

It shows that you're keeping an open mind, but also that you're the sort of person who gets *interested* in things.

 

[mcatjelly]

Okay, did some research on Stigma or No Stigma when it comes to the psychiatry specialty.

Best journal article I could find was "WPA guidance on how to combat stigmatization of psychiatry and psychiatrists" (2010) in World Psychiatry. They reviewed ~500 studies to draw their findings from.

"Among medical students, results are mixed, sometimes contradictory. While the overall status of psychiatry as a discipline is low, some studies also report positive changes in attitudes, either over the course of time or after completion of psychiatric training during medical school, although improvement in attitudes seems to be transient. In other studies, no improvement in attitudes was noted. Despite positive attitudes, the proportion of medical students indicating they would choose psychiatry as a career is often low.
[...]
Perceived low prestige and low respect among other medical disciplines have been among the main reasons mentioned for not choosing psychiatry as a career. In a recent survey of US medical students on medical specialties perceived as the object of bashing, psychiatry ranked third (39%) after family medicine and general internal medicine."
[...]
Stereotypes such as specializing in psychiatry being “wasted time” are widespread among the families of medical students, although students do not necessarily feel discouraged by their family. Nevertheless, this attitude reflects an image of psychiatry as not being “real medicine”.

I tried to then find articles on GP's attitudes toward stigma, but there are very few, and even fewer based in the US. But practically none of them found any noteworthy stigma.

 

[Cotterpin]

I don't know whether there's a stigma against practicing psychiatrists or not. But having said that, on my first day of undergrad, I went to a premed interest meeting and somebody asked a question kinda similar to OP's. The dean of our premedical program told her that she wanted to avoid sounding like she already knew she wanted to do psychiatry, specifically, because that might give off the impression that she's not interested in medicine as much. Like she could just be a psychologist instead and didn't necessarily need to go to medical school. But I dunno. I'm just passing it on.

 

[ChrisMack390]

Perceived low prestige and low respect among other medical disciplines have been among the main reasons mentioned for not choosing psychiatry as a career. In a recent survey of US medical students on medical specialties perceived as the object of bashing, psychiatry ranked third (39%) after family medicine and general internal medicine."

@Catalystik - it was really hanging out with a lot of med students, not my work at the psych hospital, that led to my earlier comments.

EDIT - For the record, I personally am very interested in psych or going into family med with an emphasis on psych.