Picking a psych residency at NYU before med school?

[Salt Salt]

So here's the deal:

I just graduated undergrad. NYU has a med school-to-residency pipeline program where accepted students get their MD in 3 years and then enter a residency at NYU. Applicants apply at the same time (or a few months after) they apply to medical school and they apply with a particular specialty in mind. They typically accept 1 to 2 spots per specialty. I want to apply for psychiatry. I think I have a good shot as I've already been accepted to their regular program and I have high stats and relevant experience.

There are several benefits to the program, such saving a year of med school tuition/rent/etc., having a guaranteed residency spot (and not having to stress about match or anything residency-related at all during med school), a mentor in your field from the first day of med school, and, last but not least, an entire year of your life back.

One thing that I'm concerned about is that, especially as someone who isn't even a med student yet, it's much more difficult to evaluate and compare residencies than med schools. There are no US News and World Report rankings to influence your decision and name recognition is not a good reason to pick an institution. Furthermore, I gather that certain residencies in the same field have different emphases. One might emphasize research vs. practice. And I know WashU is known for its biological focus, for example.

My question is: Even if we assume that picking a specialty before med school is okay, is picking a particular *residency* a bad idea? I don't want to be locked into a psych residency at NYU only to find out that they subscribe to a school of thought that I disagree with or that doesn't interest me. I know NYU has a competitive program so that's a good sign, I guess, but that's all I know. So my questions are:

1) Is it a bad idea to pick a particular residency before med school?

2) What can you tell me about NYU's residency?

3) What resources (besides the programs' websites) proved helpful to you when it came time to pick a residency? Are there any metrics or unofficial rankings that would help me get a better sense of NYU's situation?

I know that there is a good argument against picking specialties before med school, but let's just say for the sake of argument that I'm sure I want to do psych.

Read more:

http://school.med.nyu.edu/md-admissions/three-year-md-pathway-faqs

http://school.med.nyu.edu/student-resources/medical-education/md-curriculum/three-year-md-degree

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[hamstergang]

I think it's generally bad to commit to a specialty before med shool (someone in my med school class was dead set on a certain specialty all the way through part of 3rd year -- no matter how sure you are before you start med school, you aren't sure enough). Going a step further and committing to a program seems crazy to me. A lot can happen in your life in 3 years -- maybe you'll want to move.

Also, I don't like the idea of missing 4th year. It allows you to hone your skills and further explore various parts of medicine that you won't get to study so well in the future.

 

[Salt Salt]

You can always "convert" back to the regular 4-year program, so I'm still very interested in the 3 year pipeline.

 

[splik]

this sounds like a great idea. many people just waste their fourth year and pay a lot of money and do nothing of any value. some people do just know what field they want to go into, and this is particularly true for psychiatry. in fact one of the strongest predictors (or even the strongest) of going into psychiatry is decision to pursue psychiatry before medical school. Bellevue has an excellent psychiatry residency program and you can't go wrong with the clinical training. it's fairly intense, but if you don't believe in what they're selling psychiatry probably isn't for you at all. and actually there are now rankings for residency programs but i wouldn't put much stock in them though NYU is ranked in the top 10 fwiw.

 

[Salt Salt]

this sounds like a great idea. many people just waste their fourth year and pay a lot of money and do nothing of any value. some people do just know what field they want to go into, and this is particularly true for psychiatry. in fact one of the strongest predictors (or even the strongest) of going into psychiatry is decision to pursue psychiatry before medical school. Bellevue has an excellent psychiatry residency program and you can't go wrong with the clinical training. it's fairly intense, but if you don't believe in what they're selling psychiatry probably isn't for you at all. and actually there are now rankings for residency programs but i wouldn't put much stock in them though NYU is ranked in the top 10 fwiw.

Thanks splik! Very helpful. And yeah, I get the impression that psych might be a bit different in terms of the whole "don't choose your specialty ahead of time" rule. It's just so unlike the other specialties that I think it just attracts a different type of student.

Of course, I'm not even a med student yet, so what do I know...

When you say that it's intense, what do you mean? Longer hours compared to other psych residencies? "Harder" patients?

 

[splik]

both. i am not a resident there but know people in the program and it definitely sounds like they work longer hours than the average program but it also sounds like the diversity of clinical cases, patient population and extremity of psychopathology is unbeatable. their CPEP (psychiatric ER) is the largest in the country and probably the world. although it is not uncommon for people to go into private practice (it is NYC after all) you have to have an interested in public psychiatry and working with the most severely disturbed patients to appreciate it.

 

[Salt Salt]

I hope this doesn't sound ridiculous, but all of the residents on this Columbia website (PGYs 1-4) are working like 8-5 http://columbiapsychiatry.org/residency/life_Resident. Is this true of most psych residencies? How will I know what a "day in the life of an NYU psych resident is like" before I apply there?

Thanks for your help, by the way

 

[shan564]

[QUOTE="Salt Salt, post: 16104087, member: 615787"
1) Is it a bad idea to pick a particular residency before med school?[/quote]
Residencies are more similar than they are different. If you'd be OK with staying in NYC, I think that saving a year would be more meaningful than going to any particular program. If you really think that your residency shortchanged you in some area (which would not be the case at NYU), you could always spend the extra year getting extra experience in that area as a fellow or an attending.

2) What can you tell me about NYU's residency?

Good program, well-balanced overall. You'll never miss out on an opportunity because somebody thinks there's anything suboptimal about NYU.
They do have a reputation for working their residents harder than what might be necessary, but a lot of that is conjecture. Hard work often translates to better training, although there's a pretty wide standard deviation in that trend.
As splik said, NYU is generally regarded as a very strong program in psych. Being a major urban program associated with a strong med school almost always translates to good training in psych, since you get to see a wide variety of cases with severe illness.
If you do end up spending a full 4 years in med school at NYU, you'd have a pretty good chance of matching at one of the "brand name" programs (Harvard/MGH/McLean, Columbia, etc), but I don't think that'd be worth the extra year... NYU is as good as those programs in most regards.

3) What resources (besides the programs' websites) proved helpful to you when it came time to pick a residency? Are there any metrics or unofficial rankings that would help me get a better sense of NYU's situation?

Personal factors have a lot to do with it. Different programs will align with a particular person's goals better than others. That's why you don't see much in the way of "rankings" for programs. But as I said before, NYU is a well-balanced program that'll give you plenty of opportunities no matter what you want to do... the only reason why it wouldn't potentially align with your goals is if you hate NYC. Otherwise, it's not too different from other "highly ranked" programs, and I highly doubt that you'd regret the decision to go there.

If you were my brother, I'd definitely advise going for this program.

 

[slappy]

I was not aware of the existence of such tracks, but they definitely sound like a good idea to me, especially since you have the option of converting to the regular track if you have second thoughts later. NYU has a great psychiatry program, with some really good teachers. I don't think you can go wrong there.

 

[Salt Salt]

[QUOTE="Salt Salt, post: 16104087, member: 615787"
1) Is it a bad idea to pick a particular residency before med school?
Residencies are more similar than they are different. If you'd be OK with staying in NYC, I think that saving a year would be more meaningful than going to any particular program. If you really think that your residency shortchanged you in some area (which would not be the case at NYU), you could always spend the extra year getting extra experience in that area as a fellow or an attending.


Good program, well-balanced overall. You'll never miss out on an opportunity because somebody thinks there's anything suboptimal about NYU.
They do have a reputation for working their residents harder than what might be necessary, but a lot of that is conjecture. Hard work often translates to better training, although there's a pretty wide standard deviation in that trend.
As splik said, NYU is generally regarded as a very strong program in psych. Being a major urban program associated with a strong med school almost always translates to good training in psych, since you get to see a wide variety of cases with severe illness.
If you do end up spending a full 4 years in med school at NYU, you'd have a pretty good chance of matching at one of the "brand name" programs (Harvard/MGH/McLean, Columbia, etc), but I don't think that'd be worth the extra year... NYU is as good as those programs in most regards.


Personal factors have a lot to do with it. Different programs will align with a particular person's goals better than others. That's why you don't see much in the way of "rankings" for programs. But as I said before, NYU is a well-balanced program that'll give you plenty of opportunities no matter what you want to do... the only reason why it wouldn't potentially align with your goals is if you hate NYC. Otherwise, it's not too different from other "highly ranked" programs, and I highly doubt that you'd regret the decision to go there.

If you were my brother, I'd definitely advise going for this program.

This was an awesome and extremely helpful response. I really appreciate it

 

[notdeadyet]

this sounds like a great idea. many people just waste their fourth year and pay a lot of money and do nothing of any value.

I think this is more based on what kind of psychiatrist you're planning to be.

If you're planning on being the private practice type doing almost exclusively psychotherapy to a cash-only practice, 4th year can definitely be a waste of time. If you're looking at practicing more acute or severe psychopathology, or interacting in an integrative care model, 4th year is the time to take classes to become a better physician.