Switching from EM to Psych

[golfdoctor10]

Advertisement - Members don't see this ad

looking for some advice from anyone that’s switched specialties in general, or if anyone has switched into psychiatry. Contact you in an addiction medicine fellowship, and thought that emergency medicine would be a better path, but I have realized that I am always drawn towards the psychiatric cases and I’m not as interested in any medicine pieces as I was in medical school.

Currently an EM resident at a large academic institution, looking to switch into psychiatry, residency, ideally within my home institution. I plan on reaching out to the program director; however, I was curious if it would negatively affect me if I was unable to get a psychiatry letter of recommendation? It may be very difficult for me to get one well a current resident, so I wanted to see if this would be an issue?

 

[comp1]

This is going to be very hard. Most important, don't leave your current residency unless you have an acceptance. Much better to be a board eligible EM physician than a wannabe psychiatrist. There are lots of jobs you could do that focus on psych after an EM residency, like managing urgent medical issues at a freestanding inpatient psych hospital. There are none without ANY completed residency.

 

[NotAProgDirector]

In general, if you would have been competitive for a pysch spot from medical school, you have a good chance of getting a spot now. Agree you should talk to the psych PD at your place. If there's any elective time in your residency, you can probably do a psych elective. Psych is relatively flexible with PGY-1 requirements and I have seen people start as a PGY-2 from other fields -- so you'd be looking for both PGY-1 (in the match) and PGY-2 (not in the match) spots.