Official Inteview Review Thread 2011-12

Cornell

1. interview accommodations/food: No accommodations provided. Lunch with residents at the faculty club during the interview day. The lunch itself was fine, but the atmosphere was pretty fancy/stuffy/formal/nice.

2. interview day: Typical day, 8-4, with only four other students. They gave us a tour of the library which had some pretty neat books including the red book and some old treatises on witchcraft and witch hunting. We were told that in the event of a fire, the library doors would immediately shut and all the oxygen would be removed from the room to prevent damage to the books. They give you a book (http://www.amazon.com/Approach-Psyc...3008/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331685541&sr=8-1).

3. Program overview: See the website (http://www.cornellpsychiatry.org/education/residency_new.html). Two site program, NYPH in the upper east side and Payne Whitney in Westchester. The residents working at Westchester meet at NYPH at 730 and carpool to Westchester with a car provided by Cornell. Call PGY 1,2 is q7 while on inpatient psych with "occasional" weekends. q7 short call (4-7) while at Westchester. This may switch to night float. Call PGY3 is 4 weeks night float at psych ER. No call PGY 4. Limited intramural research, but will allow you to work with anyone in the city and then "bring it back to Cornell". I got the impression that for people and projects that they liked, they would go to great lengths to make it work.

PGY 1: 6 month of medicine (3 at NYPH, 3 at Sloan Kettering), 1 month inpatient psych at NYPH, 1 month psych ER at NYPH, 3 months Geri psych at Westchester, 1 month 2nd chance unit at Westchester. Was told that this is likely to change in the near future.

PGY 2: 4 months consults (2-4 cases/day), 3 months inpatient psych, 2 months Westchester, 1 month elective, 1 month ER.

PGY 3: outpatient

PGY 4: 6 months of 50% outpatient, 50% unit chief duties. 6 months elective

4. Faculty: The PD and chair both were very nice, friendly people who seemed like they would be great resources for the residents. I responded very positively to 3 of the 4 interviewers.

5. Location, lifestyle, etc: The housing is apparently amazing, but I didn't get to see it. It is very close to the hospital and presumably affordable on a resident's salary. Of course, Westchester requires a bit of a commute.

6. Benefits: Can't remember.

7. Program strengths: Many, but not all, of the residents cited Cornell's strength in psychoanalysis as a major draw for them. "Small program" feel, even though it is not a particularly small program. NYC. Housing. Can do research with anyone in NYC.

8. Program weaknesses: There is a distinct culture to the program. I felt it most strongly from the residents, and less so from the PD. If it fits you, then I don't think this is a weakness, but if it doesn't then it might be. Someone once told me that there were "a lot of bow ties at MGH". I actually think this applies more to Cornell. Not a ton of research at Cornell, although there is some (BJ Casey, for example).

1. interview accommodations/food: No accomodations provided. Dinner the night before with residents at very nice restaurant. Appropriately casual, but always be professional at these dinners.

2. interview day: Shorter day - ended by 3-ish. Talk about program given by senior resident. Discussion about various aspects of program by program director and other leaders (psychodynamic training, forensics, cultural psychiatry).

3. Program overview: See the website

4. Faculty: The PD was very nice, didn't meet Chair. Interviewers in general quite welcoming, though some typical "dynamic" questions, "Tell me about your childhood."

5. Location, lifestyle, etc: Located in Sacramento. DON'T go to Davis on day of interview by mistake! Relaxed call schedule; other side of this is you might not see as much volume as at some other programs.

6. Benefits: see website.

7. Program strengths: Forensics, cultural psychiatry, more psychodynamic training than typical in CA, everyone gets jail psychiatry experience, which is not always the case. Great child researchers. MIND Center.

8. Program weaknesses: You may not see as much volume as at some other places. Sacramento not the biggest city.

1. interview accommodations/food: None. No dinner the night before. Lunch with residents in cafeteria day of interview. Residents very nice.

2. interview day: Shorter day - end mid-afternoon. Talk to PD, Chair, and a few faculty in addition to one resident. Also have tour of facility with senior resident.

3. Program overview: See the website

4. Faculty: Everyone, including PD and Chair very nice. The faculty are very committed to both patient care (particular focus on the underserved) as well as teaching. Harbor is really a great teaching institution. You'd get a great clinical education here.

5. Location, lifestyle, etc: Southern CA is a fantastic place to live, whether you like the Hollywood scene or the outdoors.

6. Benefits: On the lower side.

7. Program strengths: Community psychiatry, psychotic disorders, good psychodynamic didactics, but not sure about the applicability of dynamic therapy in the population served (lots of chronic paranoid schizophrenia).

8. Program weaknesses: Lack of diversity of patient population. If you want to learn to work with more high functioning (for instance, college students with depression) you might be disappointed here, since the population is almost exclusively underserved. Must speak Spanish or you will be frustrated.

1. interview accommodations/food: No accommodations provided. Amazing dinners with really incredible residents. Good tours of Yale campus.

2. interview day: You'll meet with quite a few people, for about 45 minutes each. Various PIs with whom you might want to work. Also there are group interviews. There was a presentation req in the past, but no longer the case.

3. Program overview: See the website

4. Faculty: The PD, the Chair, and the faculty are all amazing. This place is like a cornucopia of people with whom you could work. Also, you can actually get a PhD during residency.

5. Location, lifestyle, etc: New Haven is not the greatest area, but the towns around it could definitely be nice to live in. Reasonable housing values.

6. Benefits: 59K PGY1 - some of the highest around. Residents can get NIH loan repayment if spending enough time doing research.

7. Program strengths: The people, the structure, the residents.

8. Program weaknesses: If you don't like New Haven, that could be viewed as a weakness.

1. interview accommodations/food: No accommodations provided. Great cocktail reception with residents and faculty after interview day. A-mazing.

2. interview day: Long day, meet with lots of residents and faculty. Tours integrated into day. And yes, this IS LA. and they have a video. Complete with cool soundtrack. MGMT anyone? This song has become part of the Match Day playlist.

3. Program overview: See the website

4. Faculty: The faculty were incredible in their accomplishments. This seems to be a place where people who have intiative do well. You need to seek out mentors, but when you find them, they will be very supportive, and they are some of the best in the biz.

5. Location, lifestyle, etc: Cheap university housing. If you're a couple you need to be married to both live there. LA is fantastic in so many ways, and so much better than what you'd think from the stereotypes.

6. Benefits: On the lower end.

7. Program strengths: Large program, annual retreats for resident bonding, incredible faculty and research.

8. Program weaknesses: You'll need to show some initiative to do well here. You'll need to seek out more dynamic training if you want it.

1. interview accommodations/food: No accommodations provided. Nice dinner with residents night before interview.

2. interview day: Typical full day of interviews with faculty, residents, and tours included.

3. Program overview: See the website

4. Faculty: The PD was in the process of transitioning at the time, but seemed quite good. The faculty seemed supportive and interested in multiple approaches (therapy and pharmacology) to treatment.

5. Location, lifestyle, etc: Boston is great but expensive.

6. Benefits: Average.

7. Program strengths: Clinical training is great here, including the therapy.

8. Program weaknesses: There is not as much time for research as at other programs.

UC Denver Interview Review

Accommodations/food: no hotel provided but they give you a list of hotels with discounts. *Pre or post interview dinner depending on which day you interview at a nice Mexican restaurant, with a bunch of residents there to chat with. *Snacks and coffee provided in the morning. *Lunch with a number of residents at one of the many on campus restaurants.

Interview day: day begins around 9 with a short hello and Q&A with the department chair, followed by an hour long program introduction by the assistant PD. *3 interviews throughout the day, one with the assistant PD, one with a faculty member, and one with a resident. *All interviews laid back and conversational. *Day concludes with a driving tour and then facility tour of Denver Health, and ends around 4:30pm. *I found it very odd that I did not meet or even see the PD throughout my entire interview day. *Apparently the PD and assistant PD rotate interview days. *Still though, I found this a little bizarre and quite frankly off putting and rude that the PD, who is in charge of the entire residency program and effectively your boss for 4 years doesn't even have 15 min to say hi to her potential future residents. **

Program Overview:*
Facilities- the program utilizes 3 main facilities; University Hospital/ Anshutz Medical Campus, Denver Health, and the Denver VA. *Anshutz is an huge and impressive campus consisting of the general hospital, incredible children's hospital, a residential addictions/rehab free standing facility, and research buildings. *Denver health is the city/county hospital of Denver, and is also very impressive for a county hospital. *I did not see the VA, but ground is broken for the new one which will be at Anshutz in 2014/15 I believe, so presumably the current one is a p.o.s. *As far as what rotations you do where, there is some variety but in general your inpt psych is split between Denver health and VA, as the University inpt psych ward closed a few years back. *Denver healthy psych ward is two 18 bed units, one is high acuity/violent, the second is low acuity. *There is a beautiful 18 bed inpt child unit, plus a 6 bed dedicated psych ER as well. * *Not sure on bed number at the VA. *Outpt psych is spent mostly at Anshutz, as that is the location of your office, plus offsite electives. *CL, IM and neuro are split between all facilities.
Curriculum- PGY 1 consists of four IM months and 2 neuro months split between University hospital, Denver health and the VA, with the amount of time spent at each facility being a crap shoot and varying between residents. It seems as if these months, particularly IM and if you so choose peds, are pretty intense in terms of expectations and hours, as it's not uncommon to push the work hour regulations during these months. There are also 6 months of general adult inpt psych, one of which is night float. *All psych months in Pgy1 are spent at Denver Health. You also begin outpt psych clinic during your first year with 1/2 day per week, which is different from a lot of places. *PGY2 is all inpt psych but specifics vary between resident. *You have 2-4 months of CL, 3-5 mons of general adult inpt psych, 1month of night float, and then 2-4 months of electives which can be filled with specialty inpt psych ( addictions, child, forensics,etc) or can be used for research, academic leadership, etc. *Apparently you don't have a choice on the number of months spent on CL vs gen inpt vs elective, which seems like it could be frustrating, but residents say you can request things and "usually" get what you want. *Continuity clinic continues this year with another 1/2 day a week of outpt psych/ psychotherapy. *Again during PGY2 months are split between VA and Denver Health, and CL months can be spent at University Hospital. *Apparently you don't get to pick which facility you are at, and some residents do almost the entire year at the VA, which I wouldn't be particularly happy about. *PGY3 is your outpt year with core experiences plus some outpt elective opportunities, which seem to be numerous including addiction, Geri, tele psych, refugee mental health, etc. *PGY4 consists of requirements of continued continuity clinic, a community psych experience for which I don't recall details, and the rest of your time spent with electives/research/chief residencies. *The program also has a number of specialty tracks including Child, research, psychotherapy, and 'Career Program' in which you take a year off during pgy3 and 4 to work as an attending in an inpt community/ state hospital type of place. *You get paid according to the place you are hired and the money is spread throughout your 4 years in addition to your regular stipend. *In general it seems that there is a lot of flexibility in terms of electives early on, and specialty tracks to commit to but some restriction in other aspects like being forced into 4 months of CL or drawing the short straw and spending a ton of time at the VA.
Call- during PGY1 is one month of night float (630p-830a Sun-Thurs) and when you are not on the nights month one 12 hour shift every other weekend. *There is also 'short call' about once a week which is just taking all admits between 230p and 630p which allows other residents the ability to go home when they are done with their work, although I got the feeling the amount of work makes leaving at 3p almost impossible. *PGY2 is one month of night float plus approx one 12 hrs shift every 4 weekends when not on nights. * Call for PGY3/4 Im not entirely sure on. *During the program introduction we were told 2-3 times per month but they say it's a mix of home call and short call. * Not exactly sure what that means. *Residents said upper level call was either 1 week or 1 weekend a month of call from home in which you get '1or 2" calls a night but are not required to go into the hospital. When not on call there is no weekend rounding during any psych rotation for all pgy years. *Not really sure how I feel about call here. *Pgy1 seems rough, then after that it doesn't seem bad, but I didn't get a firm graps of upper level call. Also, this is the only program I have interviewed at thus far that has had call during Pgy4. *Typical day for inpt psych is approximately 730a- whenever you are done with your work, but the impression I got was that was generally 5ish. *Residents said during PgY1 they averaged between 55-65 hours, depending on if it was a weekend call week. *They say PGY2 is more along the lines of 50-55 hours per week.*Not sure about upper level/out pt but presumably 8/9-5ish. *This program seems to be on the heavier side of things in terms of work schedule, and residents make it a point to say they are busy (however, many were able to attend the dinner, interview lunch, and none seemed particularly burnt out). *
Research- *there is a lot of research going on in any number of areas of psych. * * They claim to be top 10 in NIMH funding, and are top 25 in NIH funding. *They seem to run the entire spectrum from bench/drug development all the way to outcome/drug trials, and are involved in areas such as shcizophrenia, addictions, mood disorders, pretty much everything. *As I mentioned earlier they do offer a research track (they also offer a child research aka integrated track), which protects time throughout all 4 years, including 1month of research in PGY1, and at least 2 in PGy2. *There are also research specific didactics and conferences. *It seems that lots of residents are involved with research, more so than at most other places I have visited, but that may have just been a consequence of who I talked to. *No research is required but they do require a scholarly project.
Didactics- dedicated 5 hours per week as one morning during all 4years. *
Psychotherapy- therapy track option, although I did not get much information on it. *Even when not in therapy track they start with outpt work in PGY1 and have what seems to be a sufficient amount of supervision dedicated time. *Most supervision is case discussion/taped sessions although they do make use of some live supervision particularly during intakes/initial evals as all resident offices are equipped with *video monitoring. *Residents claimed psychotherapy training is good. *There is also an affiliation with the Denver Psychoanalytic Institute, although to what degree residents are involved I am not sure.*
Moonlighting- in house moonlighting available starting pgy3, consisting of weekend 12 hr shifts that pay $65hr; *I don't think there are options/ if its allowed to offsite moonlight. moonlighting is done but most residents said they choose not to ( not sure if this is due to lack of free time secondary to heavy work schedule or not, *that may be a false assumption, and maybe they just choose to ski instead).

Faculty: a very large number of faculty, some being a pretty big deal. *The chair is the editor in chief of the American Journal of Psychiatry for example. *Residents claim very good and caring faculty involvement. *I found the assistant Pd to be very nice and pleasant, and seemed to be interested in resident well being. *As above I did not get a chance to meet with the Pd which I found disheartening, especially with the rumors floating around that she is a source of malignancy within the program. *I did not have the balls to specifically ask about this, but residents said things like she is not warm and fuzzy, and does not sugar coat things and tells you how it is, but that she is fair and wants *residents to succeed and is flexible to resident needs. * They did not seem unhappy with her or the program as a whole.

Location/lifestyle: Denver seems like a pretty fantastic place. *It is certainly my type of city, laid back, liberal, no pretension, great music science,and world class craft beer scene. *Also known for the arts, good restaurant and nightlife, and of course world class skiing. *It's certainly a city I feel I would be happy in. * As far as lifestyle, as I said above this residency seems to be on the heavy side in terms of hours worked and call schedule. *That being said one resident said she was able to ski 27 times last year, and most residents seem to have active interests outside of work, so I don't think you are necessarily a slave to your beeper.

Benefits: salary is 49k-56k, and I believe Denver is pretty reasonable in terms of cost of living. Other benefits seemed pretty standard.

Strengths: Denver and all that it has to offer, *lots of research including a research track that dedicates time in all 4 years, residents seemed cool and very down to earth, *flexibility in terms of early electives

Weaknesses: heavy work schedule, potentially heavier on service vs education but that is an assumption, *potential to have a large chunk of time spent at VA, small number of psych beds and no free standing psych building

Overall impression: a strong academic institution in an incredibly desirable city, but expect to work very hard in what is not necessarily*a warm and fuzzy type of place. I actually liked this place a lot, much more than I anticipated. I think it would be a good place to train.


Side note: *there are a lot of rumors going around both SDN and the interview trail about UC Denver, including that the residents are all overworked, burnout, unhappy and that the program is malignant. *I just want to say that I did NOT get that impression. *I do think residents work harder than at most programs, however, that is not a secret as it was mentioned many times throughout the interview day, and even a quick look at the FREIDA website shows their hours worked are on the heavy side. *I did not get the impression that residents were burnt out or miserable, in fact, the ones I met seemed genuinely happy (although most were PGY2 and above and general consensus is intern year sucks, but remember people this IS residency). *Just wanted to row that in there. *

Not sure where all those asterisks in the last post came from. Sorry bout that.

Duke review

Accommodations/food: no hotel provided but there is a plethora of cheap hotels in Durham. *Beverages in the AM along with homemade coffee cake that the PD makes and brings. *Catered lunch with some residents. *Pre or post interview dinner (depending on your interview day) at a nice casual Italian restaurant with lots of residents present to socialize with.

Interview day: day begins at 7:30 with an introduction by the PD. *You then meet the chair of the department and have a group Q&A with her. *The rest of your day is split between interviews and experiencing the various aspects of the program. *The idea is an immersion in a typical day of one of the residents so you can become acquainted with the learning environment and see the faculty/resident interactions. *Those activities vary per applicant but include things like sitting in on floor rounds, spending time in the psych ER, watching a live observation session, etc. *Three interviews are interspersed, one with the PD, one with the chief resident, and one with a various faculty member. *No anxiety provoking interviews, although the one with the chief is very standard interview-esque (tell me your strengths/weaknesses etc). *The one with the PD (Dr. Thrall) is particularly fun as she seems like a delightful woman, very engaging, pleasant, and passionate about her residency program (plus she makes a mean coffee cake). *Day ends with a tour of the facilities and a wrap up with the PD, concluding around 5pm. **


Program overview:*
Curriculum- PGY1 is 1 mo neuro, 4mo IM(including 1 inpt duke, 1 med/psych floor duke, 1 in/1out at VA ) 3mo inpt adult and 3mo psych ER(one of which is night float). PGY2 is 7mo inpt including 1 of Geri, child, and night float. *3 mo C/L, 1mo outpt addiction, and 1mo psych ER night float. Outpt continuity clinic starts this year as 1/2 day per week. *PGY3 is all outpt including continuity clinic, family studies program, outpt neuro, and community psych. *PGY4 is effectively all elective except you continue the 1/2 per week of continuity clinic. *
Didactics- strong and tons of them. *5.5hrs of protected time as one morning *per week *plus various other lectures and other didactics spread throughout the week. *They incorporate PBL and team based learning into their didactic curriculum to go along with lectures and as a means to encourage/force active learning. *
Facilities- surprisingly not that impressive. *The duke hospital inpt psych ward is only one 18 bed general adult unit. * The VA, which is located on campus only has 22psych beds (with construction currently underway to expand) which is also solely a gen adult unit. *There is a "psych ER" located in the VA but I got the impression it was more of a psych walk in clinic that has a couple seclusion rooms for the acutely psychotic, but also functions as a med refill, and other walk in clinic type psych stuff. *There is also an affiliation with CRH which is the local state hospital.I did not get a chance to see this (as it's about 20miles away) but apparently it is quite impressive both aesthetically and in bed number size, and much of the second year is spent there. *
Psychotherapy- certainly a strong point. *There is tons of protected supervision time, this includes a number of modalities of live supervision sessions including one way mirrors, projectors that allow the supervisor to communicate with you in real time during a session, etc. *They seem really vested in teaching good psychotherapy and it shows as this seems very strong.*
Research- it's Duke, so obviously there is a ton of research going on. *In terms of psych there are current research projects in just about any area you can think of (neuroimaging, genetics, psychosis, clinical drug trials, integrative medicine, really you name it). They are particularly big on ECT and with the new chair TMS and magnetic induced seizures as she is one of the field leaders worldwide. *As far as resident involvement, I think it varies. *I don't believe any is required. *On the opposite end of the spectrum I met a couple residents who are doing a ton. *There is no research track per se, but the PD is very flexible with resident schedules, and I met at least one resident who split his 4th year elective time and allowed him to dedicate 1/2 of his total time beginning 3rd year doing research (mornings clinic duties and requirements, afternoons dedicated to research all 3rd and 4th year, which is similar to research tracks I've seen other places). *Residents say there is more than enough to go around, and the PD will work with you from very early on to help set you up with research mentors in your particular field of interest. *
Moonlighting- none. *Well effectively none. *Psychiatry moonlighting is not allowed by the program. You are allowed to do non-psych moonlighting if you want to do medicine moonlighting somewhere, but it seems pretty unheard-of for a resident at duke to moonlight. *This is a pretty big bummer for me. *The one nice thing is they did give their PGY3 residents a substantial monetary bonus this year since they are now required to take more call or supervisory call, so they compensated them accordingly for the shifts. *So I guess you can think of it as forced moonlighting. *Sill a negative in my book tho.
Fellowships-child, Geri, research

Faculty: lots of big name and highly published faculty. *The PD is fantastic, full of energy, dedicated to the residency, seemed sincerely vested in resident well being while at the same time pushing residents to be there best, as well as being flexible to help residents achieve their career goals. *Chair seems very interested in the residency and has a good vision for the program moving forward. Other faculty I met seemed generally interested in teaching and resident education. *And of course, a place like duke draws some very very bright people and leaders in the field. *

Location/lifestyle: I really don't know much about Durham but from what I gather it seems to be a pretty nice place to live. *The hospital grounds are very nice with the surrounding medical school campus giving it a college feel. *The city itself seems like there is plenty to do without the hassle of a big city. *It also seems like it's certainly an affordable place, and from my impression would be a fine place for singles and families alike.
Lifestyle-duke residents work hard and there are no secrets there. *I tried to get a full understanding of their schedule but it was difficult because your psych time is really split between 3main sites. *Effectively, from what I understand, there has to be a resident covering all 3hospitals at all times.
From what I gathered, call and other work hours broke down as follows: PGY1/2: * There are 3 total months of night float, one in first year, two in second. When on night float you work 12-16 (although i think mostly 12) hour shifts mon-fri with no weekend call. When on duke inpt psych you work 6 days a week**7-7. *Your non- night float ER months are 8-8 (although both of these there are generally 2residents on the service so you MAY be able to alternate between who stays around til 7/8, so it could be every other day staying til 8 and leaving around 4 on the other days). *Call for your non-night float and non duke inpt psych months is weekend only and is 1weekend of working fri night AND Sunday day, 1 weekend of just a sat day shift, and 2 weekends off. *PGY3 seems much more 8-5ish, with call being weekend only and qmonth. PGY4 is likewise with call q every other month. *So the call schedule is pretty confusing, but bottom line is you will push 70hours of work a week for the first 2years, then it calms down. *It certainly seems on the heavier side of things in terms of hours worked, but as I said it is no secret that the residents work hard. *It was brought up by most residents I spoke with, as well as attendings and the PD. *That being said residents seemed surprisingly happy, many were able to attend lunch, dinner, and other meet ups during the interview day, and no one I met seemed disgruntled. *I guess if you go in with the intention to work hard, knowing that you will be putting in more hours than most psych residents, you are ok with that in exchange for a good education at a prestigious institution.

Benefits: see website

Strengths: big name institution, great PD, chair who seems like she has the passion to invigorate an already strong department, lots of research opportunities, world class psychotherapy training, flexibility in the program with support to help you mold your residency towards your career goals

Weaknesses: very small number of psych beds on campus without much diversity, majority of psych rotations spent off campus, strenuous work schedule which seems to be influx as they attempt to adapt to work hour regulations,NO MOONLIGHTING

Overall impression: to me the biggest draw of Duke is the name value. *Completing a duke residency can certainly help your career if you are pursing academia. *To me however, Im not sure the name value would be worth it enough to overtake my perceived negatives (heavy work schedule, no moonlighting and lots of off campus psych rotations). *I have come across a number of less prestigious places that I think would expose you to a greater diversity of psychopathology, with similar research opportunities and a more reasonable work schedule.*I think Duke is a great place to be, but not necessarily a great fit for me.


Note: After I wrote this I was made aware of changes made to the program to improve life work balance, including switching one IM and one neuro month to outpt, as well as the potential to allow moonlighting. Just thought I'd add that to this for the sake of completeness.

Any one interview at University of Mississippi? ot University of Tennesee, Nashville?

Like the prodigal son I am returning after a long sdn forum hiatus to post the last of my interview reviews. Sorry I forgot to post them, but they should be here in plenty of time to hopefully be useful to some upcoming applicants. Here goes...

HSS review

Accommodations/food: No hotel provided but they give you a number of suggestions. *The program is pretty far from the airport, and from what I hear cabs were very expensive and public transit time consuming and difficult, so it's probably best to rent a car. *Catered lunch with residents on interview day. *Pre or post interview dinner with residents at a local Italian restaurant.

Interview day: day begins at 8:30 with a long program overview by the PD, highlighting the program as well as a Q&A with her. *You have 3-4 interviews (one with PD, one with a resident, one with a random faculty member and one short one with the assistant PD). *Lunch with a number of residents on site, and the day concludes with a tour of the VA facilities. *Interview weren't particularly stressful or difficult, however, they weren't the most enjoyable interviews I've had on the trail. * The one with PD was at a different time than was on my schedule(not sure why), and was pretty ackward. Just a strange vibe to her. *The short one with the assistant PD , which wasn't schedule, went fine but it was clear she hadn't even attempted to look at my application prior to talking with me. *The one with the random faculty member was likewise pretty useless, as again he clearly hadn't even skimmed my application, plus he made it clear that he was only peripherally involved with the residency program, at best. *Plus he acted like he hadn't done a residency interview in years, he even asked me what the medicine requirements were for a psych resident. *The interview with the resident on the other hand, went real well as she was engaging, and very friendly and a pleasure to talk to (you may see a theme in my review of finding the residents great but getting a strange feel from the faculty I met). Day ends around 3:15pm.

Program overview: HSS is the Harvard affiliate VA program. *So you get the exposure of the Harvard name and resources, while spending the majority of your training time at the Boston area VA in Brockton,MA. *So how this works is you spend the majority of your inpt psych months at the VA, but also have 3months at McLean, 2 months of child at Cambridge health alliance, do one forensic month at Tauton state hospital, and have 1 community psych month at yet another site. As far as your non-psych months those are split between the various VA sites plus Harvard affiliates (metro west, Beth israel). *So what it comes down to is you end up doing a lot of driving during your first two years to utilize the various resources. *How far away they all are depends on where you choose to live, as residents seem to live all over the place, but it seems feasible that you could be centrally located to have all your rotations within a half an hour or less. *Some could see this as a major flaw, however, I don't necessarily mind a 40min commute for the opportunity to spend a couple months at a place like McLean. *So pgy1 curriculum *is summarized as 4 months IM (3inpt wards, and 1 walk in clinic), 1 inpt 1oupt neuro, and 6 months inpt psych(3 gen adult, 1 substance abuse, 1 Geri, 1 emergency psych). Pgy2 is 12 months inpt psych including 2 C/L, 2child, 1 emergency psych, 1 community psych, and 1 forensic. Continuity clinic begins with 1/2 day per week. Once PGY3 beings you are then centrally located, spending all or almost all of your time with outpt clinics (general psych, ptsd,substance abuse) at the Brockton VA. PGY4 is 70% elective, but effectively is all elective with the exception of didactic time and 1/2day week of continuity clinic. * *Elective opportunities in any number of things from teaching to administrative to research, both at the VA, as well as at other Harvard institutions (at least one current pgy4 is doing her entire year doing Geri research at McLean). *
Didactics: seem very strong. *They have a full day of protected dedicated didactic time all 4 years in which you don't even have to report to your rotation site on didactic days. *In addition, inpt psych months at the VA have a scheduled 1 hr long lecture most days of the week. *Lectures given by HSS faculty, as well as faculty from the other Harvard institutions and I believe there are some BU faculty involved as well, so bottom line is lecturers will be some of the leaders in their field of study. *Generally cited by residents as one of the programs real strengths.
Psychotherapy- HSS has developed a program which they call IMPART, which is implementing manual guided psychotherapy training. *Apparently this is accomplished by the combination of didactics as well as lots of supervision time (mostly by case discussion and audio/video taped session (they do have one way mirrors in place for live supervision but apparently they are almost never used due to resident and faculty preference). *I didn't really understand how this program was any different than most other psychotherapy training going on across the country, but oh well. *Either way though, I guess the bottom line is residents claim there is lots of psychotherapy supervision and they feel their psychotherapy training is well above adequate. *
Research- they have a resident pathways to research track, which consists of research based didactics for all residents in pgy2. *If you then indicate you *have an interest to further pursue research while in residency you can formally join the track. *At that point as a pgy3 you get 1/2 day per week dedicated to research, which as a third year consists mostly of getting set up with a mentor, attending seminars, and developing a project to undertake in pgy4. *You can then spend all of pgy4, with the exception of didactic day and 1/2day continuity clinic doing your research. *As far as what's available, having access to both Harvard and VA resources means there is plenty at your fingertips. *HSS seems to be particularly strong in the areas of neuroimaging and substance abuse. *They also have a big schizophrenia research center. *Research seems to be more in the electrophys,imaging/ neurobiological and more of what I would call bench type research as opposed to clinical trials, outcome trials etc. It seems as if there are plenty of opportunities to be involved in research, and more residents seemed to be involved with it then at a lot of places I have been, although apart from the pgy 2 lecture series, it is not required. *
Facilities- you utilize a ton of sites, as above, so I won't go into specifics for all the training sites, but as far as the main ones the VA is actually quite nice. *It's on a 100+ acre campus, and is relatively aesthetically pleasing inside and out. *Lots of inpt psych beds including 112 gen psych beds, an 8bed female unit, 14 bed acute detox, and 14bed residential drug rehab unit (although I don't think they usually run even close to capacity). The IM ward months are spent at metro west which is a community hospital (good or bad depending on your preference). *McLean is obviously a fantastic facility, and the other sites you don't spend enough time at for me to go into detail. *
Moonlighting- * Is allowed starting 3rd year. *There is some onsite moonlighting available at McLean east (which is on the Brockton VA campus). *You also are allowed to offsite moonlight, and from what I heard there are multiple places looking for help. *All moonlighting is pending the PDs approval, although it doesn't seem to be an issue to have it ok'd. *Most residents do not moonlight, but I got the impression that was because so many are IMGs and thus aren't allowed because of Visa's or what not. *
Call- seems to be reasonable. *Pgy1 is q5, short call during the week til 10pm, if Saturday call is 12 hour shifts either night or day, call sun is 16hours ending at 10pm. *Pgy2 is q10, with parameters the same as pgy1 except the Saturday call is 24hours. *There are also 3weeks of Sun-Thurs night float. *Pgy3 is q10 overnight call with a post call day, plus 3weeks of night float. Pgy4 has no call. *When not on call typical psych days, both inpt and outpt, are 8am-4pm, with no weekend responsibilities. *All in all a pretty decent schedule in my book.

Faculty: Harvard faculty so they are very well respected. * Some highly published faculty. *Residents rave about a couple selected faculty members as great teachers. *Faculty lecturers are likely the best of the best, but not necessarily specifically affiliated with HSS but likely Harvard as a whole. *Residents seemed to be very pleased with faculty involvement. *As I said earlier, I got a strange vibe from all the faculty I met, perhaps it was random chance, or catching people on an off day, or not seeing enough resident faculty interaction. *Either way, I left with an unclear view of the faculty. *I wouldn't call it a weakness but id didn't stand out as a strength either. *

Location/lifestyle: Brockton is a suburb of Boston, located about 30min away. *Residents live in any number of surrounding suburbs, and a select few chose to live in the city. *I see location as a positive as it seems feasible to live in a nice suburban location that is a short commute to the Brockton campus but still on the Boston city Tline, allowing the best of both worlds in my book. There is however, all the commuting to the various sites , so in that sense there is no ideal location, but if you enjoy being away from the hustle of the city, but like the idea of being close to a large city with plenty of cultural, sports, and nightlife activities then it could be a very good place to live. *Personally, I am a fan of Boston,as it's the only big city I can really tolerate, but prefer to live in the suburbs, so location is actually a plus for me. *The weather sucks though.
As far as lifestyle, from my outline of the schedule and call shifts you can see *lifestyle remains very good. *Residents seemed genuinely happy, and all seemed to have active interests outside of work. *The good base salary, opportunities to moonlight, and reasonable work schedule all add up to a pretty good lifestyle if you ask me, and all the residents I spoke with seemed to agree.*

Benefits: salary is $60k-65k, significantly higher than any other place I have come across, which is nice. *Other benefits pretty standard I believe, but that base salary sure is nice. *

Strengths: Harvard name, utilize a variety of training sites for diversity of pts, reasonable work schedule that allows for good life/work balance, lots of resources and support for research, research track, good salary, very strong didactics, education stressed more than service, residents seem very happy and seem to get very strong fellowships (Stanford, WPIC, MGH, UCLA)

Weaknesses: variety of training sites located relatively far from one another so lots of commuting, lots of time (too much time?) at VA, I don't really see this as an issue for the inpt training as you utilize a number of other sites, but I see only dealing with veterans in the outpt setting as a pretty big flaw, *strange vibe about something in the program. *Something about the PD make me think she wasnt entirely sincere and was putting on an act, plus i found the disproportionately high number of non traditional residents (DOs and IMGs) somewhat odd. *I am one myself, so i am in no way biased against them, i just found it interesting the mass dominance of non traditional in the program (only 1 or 2 Us MDs a year) . *I asked if there was a specific reason, and was told there was not, but if it is random then its definitely a statistical anomaly. *Not really a weakness, but added to the "something not entirely right" feeling I got. In all fairness though, at no time did residents give even a hint of unhappiness with the PD, any other faculty, or the program as a whole.

Overall impression: overall, I left with a pretty good feeling about the program. *The Harvard name with a good lifestyle is certainly appealing to me, although I'm not entirely sold on a "VA residency". *It is not my favorite of the programs I have interviewed at thus far, but I think I could see myself being quite happy there and it will likely end up in the upper middle part of my rank list. *

LSU/Oschner



I'll preface this by saying I spent a month here on an acting internship so this review is a combination of my interview and my time spent rotating there.

Accommodations/Food: They paid for a night at the Brent House Hotel, which is a pretty unique thing. It's a full service hotel attached to Oschner Hospital. Apparently Oschner used to be the place to go for good American medical care if you were an affluent citizen of certain Central and South American countries, so they built a hotel to accommodate the family members who traveled with them. That trend has since passed, and most of the "hotel" has been converted to offices and the like, but they did leave some of the space for hotel rooms. It's a no frills place, and is kind of odd staying at a hotel that shares an elevator and lobby with hospital staff and patients, but honestly it worked out very well. It's extremely convenient, as the morning interviews are conducted at Oschner, so I literally had to go up one floor on an elevator and I was at my interview. Food was lunch at a nice, cool little local restaurant with the chief resident and a first year resident. No dinner or get together the night before the interview.

Interview Day: The residency is actually two programs in one (LSU and Oschner, see below), and thus the interview day was structured almost as if they were two separate programs. Day starts off at Oschner with two 30 min interviews, one with the chief resident and the other with the Oschner Training Director. This is followed by a short tour of the Oschner campus and then lunch with 2 residents. You then go to Depaul, the main LSU site, for a short tour and then three more 20-30 min interviews. One with the residency program director, one with a regular attending, and the third with the medical director of Depaul. All were pretty laid back, with the general generic questions. The one with the chief resident felt the most "interview-y" and one of the others (I will not specify but if you interview there you will know in the first 15 secs of talking to him), was all over the place and kind of hard to follow what he was asking. But I felt very comfortable in all of them, with no bizarre questions or psychoanalytic stuff.

Program Overview: From my understanding this residency used to be two separate entities, then after Katrina, they merged into one program. So it consists of two main organizations, which seem to act relatively distinct from each other, LSU and Oschner Hospital systems. Time is split between the two facilities, which I see as a positive as they are very different. LSU is a public hospital and thus has a big underserved clientele, whereas Oschner is a private hospital which caters to a whole different patient base. First year is mostly spent as LSU University hospital, as all 4 medicine months and both neuro months are there. The 6 months of intern year psych and the PGY-2 year of psych is split relatively equally between the two with an edge to the LSU hospitals. Third and fourth year outpatient clinics are split, I think Oschner has a large number of outpatient mental health clinics that you make use of. As far as the facilities themselves, University hospital is small for a University hospital (<250 beds), old and not particularly aesthetically pleasing inside or out. That being said its located downtown, seems busy, and I'm sure there's not a lack of good pathology. Oschner main campus is an impressive facility; it's huge and very nice. However, the psych ward at Oschner is small, about 13 beds total I believe. LSU's main psych hospital is Depaul, a 40 bed facility in which about 30 of the beds belong to LSU (one floor is split into two teams, the other being Tulane psych), and on the same grounds a C&A building that has about 20 beds. All facilities are relatively close; I'd say no more than 15 min from one another. Curriculum seems pretty standard, but one thing that I personally like (some may dislike) is that you really only have 2 months of general IM. The other 2 medicine months are spent on ER and "Detox Medicine", which seems very applicable to psychiatry. Also, there seems to be less elective time than some places I've looked, only having 6 months of electives 4th year as opposed to other programs that offer the entire fourth year as an elective. Lots of time protected for didactics, they protect both Tues and Thurs afternoons for didactic time. That being said, I didn't get the feeling that the didactics were particularly strong. I even heard some rumblings of, "you're responsible for your own education here", which is kind of scary. For psychotherapy training I heard very different things. Some residents listed it as a weakness, but others spoke highly and it seemed like there were plenty of opportunities to learn therapy (didactics, taped interviews, access to the psychoanalytical center of NOLA) so the judgment there is pending I guess. As far as research, there isn't much to speak of. When I asked about research responses varied from, "there's plenty of opportunities if interested" to "if NIH funded research is what you're looking for you wouldn't be happy here". As a consensus it seemed like research is not particularly important and certainly not required. Some residents present posters at conferences, but they said rarely do residents get published. Most residents I spoke with had no interest in research and cited the lack of required research as a positive. Program director did tell me a new faculty member just joined who is pushing for increased research at the program (although in what specific areas I am not sure) so this may change. Overall though, this is a place that trains clinicians, not researchers, and they are very open about that. General feel of the program is laid back with a congenial atmosphere. I was really impressed by how nice and friendly everyone was, particularly during my sub-internship month. And I mean everyone, from attendings to LSU med students all the way down to techs and janitorial staff. Everyone was welcoming, friendly, and generally seemed happy, and there's certainly something to say about that.

Faculty: To my knowledge no big name or highly published faculty, but all seem very nice and friendly. The attending I was with during my sub-I was fantastic, and very accessible to the residents. As a whole, residents had good things to say about faculty, although it was more along the lines of congeniality and accessibility than it was about stand out teaching experiences. Not sure if there's anything to read into there or not.

Location/Lifestyle: Lifestyle seems great. Residents certainly aren't overworked. The service I was on for a month was done by noon-1ish every day, and I got the impression that that's common to a number of the psych rotation months. To add to that, call is lax to say the least. Q7 call as an intern, which if during the week is 5-10pm, if it's the weekend it's a 12 hours shift, I believe day shift only. From what I took from it, interns do ZERO overnight call, and that includes no months of night float. PGY-2s take q9 call from home. No call 3rd and 4th years. Lots of moonlighting opportunities, which to me with their schedule seems like you could moonlight a lot if you so choose. One really cool thing they have is in house moonlighting which you can start as soon as you pass Step 3 and are a PGY2, even before you get your license. Definitely a bonus! As far as location, it depends. Personally, I am a big fan of New Orleans. It is a city full of culture, with great restaurants, unique population, and plenty to do. However, I could see how many people would not be a fan of the city. It's not exactly the cleanest place I've been, many parts are very touristy which can be annoying, and if you're from upper middle class suburbia you could be in for a culture shock. I've never been in a place where you transition from half million dollar homes to the projects in just a couple blocks. It's pretty unique actually. That being said though, I spent my sub-I month in a not so nice part of town and never once did I feel unsafe. Most residents live in the Uptown area (which is where Depaul is located), which is a very nice, clean, and safe part of the city with plenty to do.

Benefits: Salary on the lighter side at somewhere around $44-$48k over your four years. New Orleans is relatively cheap to live in, and with all the opportunities to moonlight you could certainly supplement your income and live very comfortably.

Strengths: Strong clinical program, with a good mix of public and private patients. GREAT lifestyle, cake call schedule, happy residents who operate in a very congenial manner. Good social work support, which makes your life easier. New Orleans.

Weaknesses: Very little research opportunities. Questionable didactics. Residents didn't seem very intellectually curious, I got the sense that some were just coasting through and were happy to do the bare minimum to get by, and I think that can be infectious. New Orleans (if it's not the place for you). Scary comments about "responsible for your own learning". Questionable psychotherapy training.

Overall: I feel this is a very good place to be if you are interested in solid and practical clinical training, with a very good lifestyle at a place full of congenial and positive people. I do get the sense that residents aren't pushed, and some may be there simply for the lifestyle and relative ease of the profession/residency as opposed to a true love of psychiatry and I could see it being easy to slide by and graduate at a level of proficient mediocrity. That being said, I think it's a place I (and most people) would be very happy training, and if you are a self motivator you could certainly use the lax schedule to you educational advantage.

UVA Interview Review

Accommodations/Food: no hotel provided. *Dinner the night before with residents, that I was not able to attend. *Breakfast the day of the interview, as well as a catered lunch with residents but unfortunately very few residents were able to make it. *Busy day on the wards I guess, but I would have liked the chance to talk to a couple more residents. *Oh well.

Interview Day: day begins at 9 with a very long program overview sideshow from the PD. *There are four interview throughout the day, plus lunch and a tour of the hospital. *The day wraps up around 3.

Program Overview: Curriculum- PGY1 four IM months (one on the inpt wards, 2 med consults which can be inpt, outpt clinic, general IM or an IM sub specialty, and 1 mo ER). *The consult months can apparently end up being very Cush if you get a good sub specialty, however, I'm not sure if it's entirely your call or you are assigned what to do. *There are also 2 mos neuro, 3 months of psych ER/ Consults, and 3 months of gen adult psych inpt on their hospital ward. *PGY2 has some variation per individual, but in general it is 3-4 mo inpt psych, split between the UVA inpt unit and the state hospital, 2-3 months of elective that can be used for addictions, research, child, etc. *you also spend more time on the consult/ER team, do a month at the Wellness Recovery Unit which is a step down unit, and have 1/2 month on ECT. *PGy3 is 100% outpt psych. *PGY4 is 1 day per week of continuity clinic, 1/2 day per week of consults/ER, required selectives in addictions, forensics, and community, and the rest of the time elective. *
Facilities- UVA hospital system is right on the colleges campus, which is a beautiful college campus. *The hospital itself is very nice, and the psych ward is a one floor wing of the hospital, consisting of 23 gen adult beds, 5 of which are Geri beds. *One of the biggest things that surprised me with this whole interview process in the lack of psych beds at these highly reputable institutions. *And UVA certainly isn't the only one, it just surprised me and kind of disappointed me in the lack of dedicated free standing psych hospitals. But I digress. *You also utilize the state hospital which is a large 250 bed hospital located approximately 45 min away. *Your involvement there can range from 1 month up to 5-6 months in the first two years. *It is likely a great resource, but driving 45 min each way to work everyday could be annoying. *Outpt clinics are based in the university outpt clinics which we did not tour, but looked pretty new and very nice from the outside. *
Research- a pretty decent amount of research going on here. *The relatively new chair came in and revamped the research department. *Most of the incoming research dollars are dedicated to addictions research, as that and forensics seems to be the university's bread and butter. *My interest is in psychosis and they admitted they do not have a single psychosis or schizophrenia researcher. *They do have what I think is a real cool research division called the Division of Perceptual Studies. *It's one of I believe only 2 such centers in the country actively doing research into near death experiences and other out of body experiences, and using it to investigate consciousness. *This is probably too spacey for most, but I think it's really cool and it's something I would like to be a part of. *They do have a research track, which is relatively new, and has not been completed by any residents to date. *But it is in place, and consists on mentor identification in year one, then protected time from PGY2 on, starting with 1/2 day per week plus additional didactics in year two, and expanding from there. *
Psychotherapy- they do have a psychotherapy track, of which I do not remember any details. *I also can't really recall much about psychotherapy training in general. *Sorry this was my 13th and final interview, so not as much stuck as interview #1.
Didactics- seem to be a pretty big weakness. *No dedicated time in PGY1, at best you will have some sporadic didactics, and worse you will have none. *PGY2 is only 1-1.5 hours per week of dedicated didactics. *You 'make this up' during PgY3 when you have one whole day a week dedicated to didactic time, but to me that doesn't really suffice. *I would consider this one of the programs big negatives, and most residents agreed it was a weakness. *
Call- another somewhat complicated call system (why everyone didn't develop straight up night float baffles me). *In PGY1 during consults/ER you will be on a team with 2 other interns. *So the 3 of you rotate doing 4 night runs of night float. *Effectively it comes out to approximately 10 night shifts per month for each of those 3 months on that service. *Inpt psych months during PgY1 consist of no 'call', but you work 6 days a week with the exception that you get 1 full weekend off per month. *PGY2 you have 3-4 overnight call shifts per month, which can be weekday or weekend. *PGY 3 and PgY4 call is strictly 12 hour weekend day shifts in the ER, with frequency being 1-2 month in PGY3 and 0-1 month in PGY4. *Call, although not terrible, certainly isn't light, I especially don't like the pgy3 and 4 call. *
Moonlighting- is available, I believe doesn't *start until PGY3. *I know it consists of 24 hour weekend shifts at the state hospital, for which you make $1200. *Pretty solid, but with what sounds like only 1 shift per week I'm not sure of the availability. *The state hospital is big though, so maybe it's not a problem.*
Fellowships/tracks- child, Geri, forensics with tracks in psychotherapy, research, and community.

Faculty: faculty I meet seemed cool and excited about what they do. *All were very pleasant and collegial. *

Benefits: check website

Location/Lifestyle: Charlottesville is a college town, but it's beautiful. *I believe there is plenty to do in terms of restaurants, night life, music science, etc. *it also seems like a pretty nice place to raise a family if that's your cup of tea. *It is most certainly a college town though, so big city folks will probably not be happy there. *As far as lifestyle I am not sure. *Not meeting many residents (I meet 3 the whole time, and really only got the chance to speak to one) was a disadvantage when trying to figure out their lifestyle. *This was partially my fault as I was not able to make the dinner, and partially the lack of residents able to attend lunch. *This may be a sign of being overworked, or maybe it was just a particularly busy day. *I'll guess I'll consider it a neutral.

Strengths: nice college town, pleasant faculty and staff, some elective time early on, research track available, *cool perceptual studies research division, they claim to be strong in forensics, although I do not know anything about forensics psych so it's hard to comment on

Weaknesses: lacking didactics, *non ideal call schedule with weekend call continuing into Pgy3 and4, no psychosis research (likely a personal negative only), no free standing psych hospital thus small number of on campus beds, state hospital 45min away could mean some driving if you want that positive inpt experience*

Overall Impression: middle of the road program in a nice college town, *with a decent amount of resources available. I think you would get a quality education no matter what your career goals. *

USC Palmetto Interview Review

Accomodations/Food: Program sets up and pays for ½ the cost of a night in a hotel room, they get you a suite, which is nice, and provide a shuttle to the interview day. No pre interview dinner, or breakfast the day of the interview. Lunch with 1 or 2 residents at a local restaurant of you or the residents choice. I went to a real nice seafood place. Good food, but would have enjoyed the opportunity to talk to more than 1 resident.

Interview Day: Day begins around 8:30a with a brief program introduction by the assistant PD. You then have 5 back to back interviews (PD, assistant PD, a faculty member in your area of interest, chief resident, and another resident). All pretty laid back, some pretty much pitch the program only, others more interview esque, but no crazy questions. You then have lunch with 1 or 2 residents, followed by a tour of the facilities. The tour is pretty useless and is pretty much a driving tour as you don’t even go into the units of the psych hospitals. Oh well. Day concludes around 3pm.

Program Overview: This program has the reputation of a cush schedule and a program that takes care of its residents but still provides a good education. Here’s my take.&#8232;I’ll start with the curriculum- PGY1 is pretty standard with 4 months IM (2 inpt at VA, 2 elective to do in/outpt IM, FM, Peds; medicine here seems to be on the cush side for sure), 1 mo neuro, and 7 months inpt psych (2 gen adult VA, 2 gen adult state hospital, 1 each addiction, child, psych ER). PGY2 is different from a lot of places in that this is your outpt psych year. The year consists of gen adult, psychotherapy, child, and specialty outpt clinicis. There is also some dedicated ‘research’ time during this year, that is mandatory for all residents, but I believe consists mostly of additional didactics and some involvement with patients who are in clinical trials. PGY3 consists of a split between inpt and outpt psych. There are 6 months of community outpt psych including involvement with some specialty services including a perinatal outpt clinic, which is cool. You also have 2 months of inpt gen adult psych , 1 mo geri, 2 mo C/L, and a month of outpt neuro. Continuity clinic is continued even on the inpt psych months, although no time is blocked off per se and you can fit your patients into your schedule as little or as much as they require/you wish. PGY4 consists of 1 month inpt child, 1 month addiction, 3 mo junior attending in the service of your choice, and 7 months elective. &#8232;Facilities- as you see from the curriculum you utilize a lot of sites, particularly for your inpt psych months. Personally, I mark this as a negative, but that’s just me. The main sites for psych are: Palmetto Richland, the hospital campus that houses most of the USC Palmetto residencies, which has a small psych only building, I believe consisting of just 1 gen adult unit and potentially a separate geri unit. You also use a sister site Palmetto Baptist, which is a community general hospital with gen adult and geri units (potentially a child unit as well). You also spend some time at the VA, details of which I do not know much about, likely just a gen adult unit. And finally you spend 2 months at the G Werber Bryan state hospital, which I believe is one 32 bed gen adult unit (strange to be so small for a state hospital I know, but apparently state funding for mental health bottomed out in SC quite some time ago). Addiction rotations are at a sister site to the state hospital on its campus, I forget the name or details. All outpt time is spent at the Palmetto Richland campus, where resident offices are located. So lots of different facilities, but none are particularly impressive. That being said I did not go IN any of the units, and the resident giving the tour was not able to give much information on things such as bed number, diversity of pathology, etc. &#8232;Psychotherapy- this on the other hand seems like a strong point of the program. One thing helping it is that outpt year is second year, plus you have an additional 6 months in PGY3. Also, you have separate supervisors for each modality ( I believe there are 5, CBT, DBT, psychodynamic, MI, at least one other I forget). This leads to LOTS of supervision, done by experts. Residents agree and pretty unanimously consider it a strength. Most supervision is case discussion, with some audio/video taped sessions as well. No direct observation or one way mirrors or the like.&#8232;Research- there is some research going on here, but not much. The focus is on large scale health care implementation and clinical trials. They do have a couple interesting clinical trials going on, although it seems they may act more as satellite sites than PI centers. They do have some opportunities utilizing a SC mental health database, and apparently outcome trials and some other publications come from there. Not the place for bench research, neuroimaging, or really NIH grant seeking people, although residents and faculty both proclaim research is supported and even encouraged and will help you get funding if you have a project you want to do. &#8232;Moonlighting- can be done starting second year. It is inhouse at one or two of the sites you use for inpt work, and is both short weekday shifts, and long weekend shifts. Doesn’t pay very well, $55/hr, but its inhouse, available, and starts early. A plus for me. &#8232;Didactics- Dedicated ½ day per week as an afternoon. Also some random additional time thrown in for certain things. Seems like plenty of didactics and time to learn. I can say that this program is definitely education over service. &#8232;Call- confusing because time is spent at so many different places, but overall VERY GOOD, and in a nutshell….PGY1: State Hospital (2 months) one call per week, short call stil 10:30p and no weekends; other inpt psych (3 months) call q6, short call til 11pm during the week only, no weekends; VA (2 months) no call, but weekend rounds until noon , once every other weekend; no call on neuro; they explained medicine call but I don’t remember (it is light though!). So yes, you read this right, as an intern you only work approximately 4 weekends the entire year. Crazy. PGY2: call approx 3x per month, usually one of which is a weekend shift. Again no overnight call here. PGY3: call Sun only, once every 6 weeks. Again no overnight. PGY4: no call. Crazy good call schedule.&#8232;Overall, this program does have a cush schedule, and it does seem that the education (particularly psychotherapy and outpt) is quite good. Certainly they stress education over service. However, I did not get the feeling that residents were lazy or unmotivated. Seems like they were passionate about psych, enjoyed learning, and liked what they do. I will say though, that this program definitely has a community feel as opposed to an academic institution. I think this comes from the facilities you utilize, lack of research, general attitude, and overall feel. I’m not saying this is a bad thing, in fact some may prefer it. However, if you are looking for an academic program this may not be the place for you.

Faculty: Faculty that I met seemed great. All very pleasant, personable, and showed sincere interests in the residents and the program. No big name or highly published faculty (although I believe the chair may be), but this isn’t that kind of place. They do have a number of former PDs/former Chairs that are formerly or currently holders of high ranking positions such as chair of the APA and the like. Either way, residents rave about the faculty, their approachableness, and desire to actively be involved.

Benefits: Salary is on the higher end at $50k-$57k, which is nice. Apparently ancillary benefits (insurance, etc) are also very good although I don’t know details. They pay for meals all year round (not just when on call), which is a not a huge thing but is a very nice perk IMO.

Location/Lifestyle: Columbia isn’t the most exciting place, but it doesn’t seem bad either. The USC undergrad campus is in the city, so it has more of a college town feel than a big city one. Not terribly a lot going on, but it seems there are some nice places where one could entertain themself. I believe the cost of living is real good, and the weather certainly could be worse. A decent place, but I don’t think the location is what draws most people to the program.&#8232;As far as lifestyle, it seems pretty fantastic. I would say the number one thing stressed during my interview day was life-work balance. As you can see above, the call schedule is amazing, particularly the number of weekends you have free beginning from day 1. As far as other work hours, it seems to be very much a 40 hour work week schedule. Residents say most days start around 8:30a and you are almost always done by 4:30p when not on short call. This goes for both inpt and outpt. Add in the fact that you get paid a good base salary, and have the opportunity to moonlight beginning PGY2, and it seems like your quality of life would be pretty fantastic.

Strengths: Very reasonable work and call schedule with excellent work/life balance; education over service; residents well taken care of; strong psychotherapy training; pays well; cush medicine months; happy residents

Weaknesses: Facilities aren’t impressive and time spent at a lot of sites; not much research; less elective time than many other places; community more so than academic; really not sure the breadth or diversity of psychopathology (especially for the inpt experience) is particularly good

Overall Impression: Good mix of education with high quality of life, however, personally I am looking for a more academic institution.

USF Interview Review

Accomodations/Food: No hotel provided, no pre-interview dinner. Muffins and coffee in AM, lunch on interview day off campus with a couple of residents.

Interview Day: day begins around 8:15 with an introduction and quick program overview with the PD and chief resident. 5 interviews throughout the day (with PD, chief, and 3 faculty members). No stressful interviews, all laid back and more of a pitch of the program than anything. Tours of the VA and University Hospital plus lunch off site round out your day, which ends around 3:30.

Program Overview: Facilities-the program is split between a few different sites; Tampa General Hospital and 2 separate VAs. Tampa General Hospital is a huge (over 1000 beds I believe) and beautiful hospital, with a single psych unit of 18 gen adult beds. The James A. Haley VA is a very busy VA where you will spend a number of psych months and is located in the city. The psych ward is newly built/remolded and is a very nice, consisting of 40 beds split into 2 gen adult units (one of which has a geri team). You also spend some time, albeit only a couple months maybe only 1 month, at a second VA which is located about 45min away. One really important note( at least to me) regarding the facilities is that TGH is no longer a Baker Act receiving facility. In FL Baker acts are the name of the involuntary psych patients. This means that you will have very little exposure to this patient population, which obviously includes the acutely psychotic and manic and to me is the most exciting, interesting, and intense patient population in psych. I believe you will still get the exposure during your VA months, but inherently that patient population has its own limitations in terms of diversity, and a psych residency that doesn’t have an affiliation with an involuntary psych receiving facility is pretty much a deal breaker for me, so this review will not be as thorough as other ones I have done cause after I heard that, I knew this wasn’t the place for me and thus didn’t retain as much info about the program as I otherwise would have.&#8232;Curriculum- first 6 months of PGY1 is 4 IM and 2 neuro, some variation in the number of months that are inpatient wards vs others (med consults, ER, etc). Next 18 months is inpatient psych, including approximately 8 months of gen adult inpt, 4 CL, a couple psych ER and a couple specialty psych months. This rounds out your first 2 PGYs. Unlike most places I’ve been continuity clinic does NOT begin this year. PGY3 is a year of outpatient psych split between TGH and the VA (3 days with the university population, 2 days at the VA). PGY4 is 2 more months of psych ER, 2-4 more months of CL,a community psych requirement and 6 months of electives. Continuity clinic continues with ½-1 day a week throughout the entire year. &#8232;Psychotherapy- lecture based with some case discussion. No one way mirrors or direct observation. Residents kind of insinuated you get out of it what you put it (if you are very interested you can seek specialized training, otherwise its not particularly emphasized). &#8232;Call- a little confused on how the call works. Apparently no call at all during PGY1,however, according to some faculty you are required to work 6 days a week, however, residents said they don’t work weekends so not sure. PGY2 call is night float plus weekend call approximately q3 weeks. PGY 3s take call, I’m not sure of the regularity but it seemed a point of contention since up til last year PGY3s only took call for the first 6 months and now take it all year. No call PGY4. &#8232;Research- apparently has increased 8 fold in the last couple of years, although NIH funding is still very low. There is some active research faculty at the VA so I’m guessing a lot of that 8 fold increase is coming from there. No research track. A scholarly project required but most residents choose to do something simple and very few do research. &#8232;Didactics- ½ day per week. Residents say they are strong.&#8232;Moonlighting- one of the big program highlights. In house moonlighting that pays $100/hr starting 3rd year. Can’t beat in house with triple digit salary.

Faculty: No real big name or highly published faculty, but faculty seems interested in teaching. Apparently there were problems with some of the VA faculty not teaching, but this has been resolved. All faculty I met seemed real cool and interested in the residency.
Location/Lifestyle: Tampa is pretty sweet. Fabulous weather, plenty of restaurants/night life activities, half an hour to white sand beaches, even the TGH residents lounge has a patio that overlooks the water. So it’s a pretty nice place, with a reasonable but not great cost of living. As far as lifestyle, residents seemed genuinely happy and not overworked. I also didn’t get the impression that this place was light in terms of work hours, so its likely somewhere in the middle in terms of quality of life. FREIDA lists their hours as very light (45hrs intern year) but residents say they usually are there at 7am and some services stay as late as 7pm, so who knows.

Benefits: $46k-$51k; not sure on other benefits.

Strengths: good location with great weather; friendly and congenial environment, a moderate work schedule, great moonlighting

Weaknesses: lack of psychopathology acuity a huge weakness in my book and a deal breaker; even if involuntary receiving status comes back, pt diversity still underwhelming; not very strong in terms of research; I peraonally don’t like the schedule with at least 6 months CL, both psych ER and CL revisted in 4th year, and only 6 months of electives

Overall Impression: Not a particularly strong program, but happy residents in a location thats appealing to many.

That's all folks. I actually enjoyed the interview trail, and I hope some upcoming applicants find some of this information useful.

psychphan said:

MUSC Interview Review

Accommodations/Food: No hotel provided. They give some recommendations for hotels with special discounted rates. I chose to priceline a place by the airport (about 10-15min drive from campus) which was about ½ the cost of the hotels they recommended, even at the discounted rates. Dinner with 4 residents the night before at a nice little Italian place. Very laid back and lots of opportunity to chat with the residents. Coffee/Danishes for breakfast in the AM. Lunch at a restaurant located right on campus which had very good food.

Interview Day: Day begins at 8am with an introduction from the program director then a presentation by one of the chief residents. 3 interviews in the morning, one with the PD and 2 others with faculty who specialize in your areas of interest. All interviews were pretty laid back, the one with the PD was particularly enjoyable, very conversational but at the same time assessing if I would be a good fit and then touting the benefits of the program based on my interests. One of the interviews had a lot of questions about my life growing up/family/friends/high school and college with very little psych or current interests questions, which I found kind of strange but it was actually a nice change from the same old “why psych/why program x” type of questions. The interviews were followed by a nice lunch and a pretty long tour of the campus/facilities. Day is scheduled to end at 2pm, but our tour ran to 3pm.

Program Overview: &#8232;PGY1- 4 months IM: 1 VA inpt, 1 VA outpt, 1 University hospital Wards, 1 m ER; 1 month neuro; 4 months inpt adult psych; 1 month child psych; 2 months night float&#8232;PGY2- 3 gen adult inpt; 1 each of Geri psych, addiction inpt, addiction outpt, emergency psych, 2 C/L psych, 1 neuro consults, 2 months night float; outpt work begins with ½ day/wk all year
PGY3- all outpt clinics split between VA and university hospital outpt clinics
PGY4- full year of electives
*some gen adult and addiction months spent at VA, but majority at university psych hospital&#8232;
Call for PGY1 and PGY2 is strictly your night float months. No during the week short call, which is different from what most other programs seem to do. This is nice but it extends your night float months to 15hours shifts (5pm-8am). No weekend “call” but you are required to weekend round, approximately 1-2 weekends a month. If your weekend rounds run past noon you get a bonus PTO day. Residents claim to have about 3 weekends a month free. PGY3 consists of approximately q12 overnight call (the only real “call” days in terms of having to continue to work at night after working a typical day) where you act as the supervising resident to the PGY1/2s. PGY4 is no call with the exception that most residents choose to help out the interns and do one buddy call to start off their year. A typical PGY1/PGY2 work day begins at 730-8am and I believe runs til sign off at 5pm. I did not hear about work days for the outpatient years but I assume its pretty standard 9-5ish.

Tons of research going on here, particularly addiction research. Many people may not realize that MUSC is actually in the top 10 in NIH funding for psych. They also claim to have the #1 and #3 highest funded individuals in the country for psych research. They have a research track that you can commit to during the middle of your second year, which dedicates and protects 50% of your time during PGY3 and PGY4 to do research. You pair up with a mentor who shares your interest and then it follows a mentorship model. They also have their own didactics for those involved in the research track. Surprisingly with all the research going on, they do not require residents to do any. Its an optional activity that can range from minor projects all the way up to the research track. Many residents do none and 2-3 a year do the research track.&#8232;&#8232;Regular (non research track) didactics are 2 hours a week, only on your “on service months”, so 6 months your intern year, all year except night float PGY2. It is protected time one afternoon a week. Psychotherapy supervision consists of one on one case discussion. If you so choose you can record your sessions to go over with your supervisor, but it seems not many ppl do this and the supervision is really just case discussion. No direct supervision as in 1 way mirrors, live viewing, etc. Residents claim to be happy with their psychotherapy training and supervision, although it didn’t seem particularly emphasized. They do have a specific psychoanalytical faculty member who is supposedly a big deal although I didn’t get much information about that aspect.

Facilities consist of a 90 bed free standing psych hospital with 1 acute/violent adult unit, 1 gen adult unit, 1 child/adolescent unit, 2 geri units, and an addiction until. VA psych unit has 18 beds. University hospital is large and nice. Both psych and general hospitals are tertiary care centers for the majority of the state and surrounding areas, so you likely won’t be short on psychopathology. &#8232;&#8232;Moonlighting: residents all list moonlighting as an advantage to the program, but unfortunately there is none on site, and in reality there aren’t even any opportunities in the city. Most residents moonlight in either Savannah (<2hrs away) or Greenville (approx 3.5 hrs). They both apparently pay very well for moonlighting >$100/hr, but it still seems like a negative to me.


Faculty: Some big name and highly published research faculty as I mentioned above. Residents seem to be happy with the faculty as a whole, claiming they are accessible and like to teach. The PD seemed great, very vested in the development of an already strong program, and seemed to be in tune with resident concerns and needs.

Location/Lifestyle: Charleston is pretty fantastic. They make the point to tell you it was voted the #1 city in America for 2011 by some agency or poll, and I can see why. Very pleasant weather almost year round, a cool historic section, tons of bars/restaurants, beaches 20 min away, and there seems to be plenty to do. I really enjoyed it because it had the least city feel of any “major” city I’ve ever been to. The campus itself is beautiful and pretty impressive. A number of hospitals all on what has a college campus type feel. All facilities that you will need are in walking distance, including the psych hospital, VA, regular university hospital and even the outpatient clinics which are attached to the psych hospital. Lots of new buildings popping up on campus and it has a clean crisp feel to it. &#8232;
As far as lifestyle, residents claim to have plenty of time to enjoy their lives outside of the hospital and generally all seemed very happy. To me it seems to have a heavier work schedule than many places, particularly the 4 total months of night float. The idea of 2 months of night float during PGY2 bums me out, especially with the 15 hours shifts and approx 17-19 shifts/months, which seems to add up to a pretty intensive rotation to do 4 times.

Benefits: Salary on the low end at about $45-50K/yr during PGY1-4. Honestly, on the scale of relative importance this is pretty low on my list so I didn’t pay all that much attention to the other benefits.

Strengths: Lots of research, happy residents, friendly people, and a great location that has city sized resources in a place with a small town feel. Pysch very strong relative to many of the other residency departments at the school, and residents make it a point that you are never looked down upon for being a psych resident at MUSC. Addiction program seems very strong. An invested PD, a very aesthetically pleasing campus, and overall I just had a real good feeling about the program.

Weaknesses: Schedule on the heavy side, especially those 4 months of night float. No psych ER, which is curious cause the PD’s background and interest are in ER psych and emergency crisis intervention. They don’t even have a psych holding area in their regular ER. This could certainly be an issue if you are an aspiring psych ER doc. Very light didactics. Questionable strength of psychotherapy. No in city moonlighting.

Overall impression: Great clinical resources plus tons of research. This residency came off as a strong program in a very desirable location, and I would be very happy if I were to match here.

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I completed residency at MUSC, and I would say this review is pretty accurate. Night Float is a positive. When I did night float, I had 12-15 shifts per month. Some residents stack their shifts so they can take a week of unofficial vacation (doesn't count against 3 weeks of PTO) during a night float month. There is a psych holding area in the ER consisting of about 6 beds. The ER sort of functions like a psych ER but the staff is EM attendings (you answer to psych attending on call). There is a full time psych NP in the ER during the day. Moonlighting can be lucrative though it is a drive. Residents typically make $2500-3000/weekend and work one weekend a month (some work more). They are starting in-house moonlight at $55/hour, but I don't know details about that. And Charleston was named #1 city in the USA and the world for 2012 by Conde Naste Traveler. It's a great town.

NoNoNoNo said:

I'll just add a couple things:
-I think the fact that it's the only two day interview shows kind of how split the two sites (and potentially difficult travel between them is). That's a plus and a minus as far as two very different and complementary types of training, but also spread with commute etc.
-Many people remark that the PD's speech (pacing, emphasis, etc.) on the first day is a bit odd, however you might interpret that. I'm sure some people love it.
-Big emphasis on being "rigorous" as their key word (similar to the "marine corps" key phrase I heard at Cornell)
-Very aware of their ranking as a top place
-May be a PGY1 transferring out (due to some difficulties with the program itself and them not being handled with compassion) currently that the program avoided answering questions about when someone was asking
-Agreed about hearing the malignant underside
-Less public exposure but definitely building the community exposures with someone who came from CHA
-Medicine very intense if at MGH
-Faculty are non-tenure-track, which is good and bad if you stay on. Not everyone has to publish or perish to get title, but you also can't get tenure and secure your spot/flexibility of research (and your appt is based on clinical income)
-Lots of guaranteed time abroad. Your elective time is paid (you don't have to secure money for it unlike other schools like maybe yale?, columbia?, etc.) so you have more true flexibility (though not more TIME) to go abroad or do random things
-Their other mantra is "we have yet to see it all" so the doctors all wear short white coats if they trained there
-lots of great and unique specialty uniques, partial programs, etc.
-60% of residents stay on
-Developing new tracks (though say they don't want to call them tracks because certain other schools do) in things like research, psychotherapy, etc.

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i'm a yale resident and our elective time is also "paid," and I'm pretty sure that holds for Columbia and the vast majority of programs at academic institutions. In fact, in the research track, most residents get the Loan Repayment Program Award (35k/year) to pay off educational loans in additional to our salaries. Because we have so much research time we qualify for the award.

At University of Michigan, Child/Adolescent unit will be moving to the brand-new children's hospital next year