I mentioned some advantages to being in a non-ACGME/board certified fellowship. The difference is that you can do some “fellowships” as a PGY-IV, only they are part of your general adult training and you are a transfer student. If this is in the same program, then it is very much akin to just doing a lot of elective time in a specialty clinic. Board certified fellowship training currently requires you to finish adult training before entering. This may change, but so far it hasn’t. Either way, women’s psychiatry is unlikely to have a board certification in the foreseeable future.
In your situation, you can come in as a PGY-II and be board eligible in three years. This would mean 4 months of medicine, 2 months of neuro, 6 months of inpatient (one year), 12 months of continuous outpatient (two years), and then you need 2 months of child, 2 months of C&L, one month of Geri, one month of addiction, forensics, community psychiatry, and emergency psychiatry. In other words, you will not have much elective time to spend in a women’s clinic. You could do this and then spend a PGY-V year doing women’s psychiatry, or (and similarly) you could enter as a PGY-I and take the same 4 years with elective time. There would be some difference in pay.
My analogy would be buying a new set of Calloway golf clubs. You could buy a used set, have them sharpened, repainted, and re-gripped, and the outcome would be about the same. After you get out there and play a while, no one would be able to tell the difference. How well you play would have more to do with how you practice and how much mentoring you get from whom.
Since you mention California,
http://www.semel.ucla.edu/mood/womens-life
Good luck.