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I have a few psychology majors interested in pursuing med school training to become psychiatrists. Any resources, information, and advice is welcomed.
I have a few psychology majors interested in pursuing med school training to become psychiatrists. Any resources, information, and advice is welcomed.
Taking call is something else to consider. I honestly don't know if psychologists are expected to routinely take call overnight and work weekends, but in residency, and in fellowship, and in my current position as an attending, that's a regular part of the job.
being a psychiatrist is more often than not a terrible career choice,
Just to echo the above--this field is becoming more and more technical in nature (personally, I'm not sure if this is a good thing, but it is what it is) and not necessarily a good fit for people who come mainly from a psych background. I would add that undergrad training in statistics and pharmacology, and some econ/business training are more important these days for this field than a typical undergrad psych[ology] curriculum.
I've been working on a project that requires having some discussions with psychiatrists nationwide on some practice oriented issues, the general vibe is that the therapy facet is dying a very hard death. People still like to talk about it, yes, but a typical psychiatrist these days feels like any other cognitive specialty MD in their day to day (i.e. a LOT of practice management stuff, supervising midlevels, outcome optimization, insurance, etc). Clinically also tends to be either high volume or very niche. It's not a good fit for people who are looking for a more humanistic career. I think if you don't plan to become a physician in a conventional sense (even beyond the residency training period), being a psychiatrist is more often than not a terrible career choice, unless you "luck into" one of those jobs that's mainly therapy, which is really not the norm--and even then, anecdotally I feel that psychiatrists who do a lot of therapy are typically extremely specialized as well.
Are you mainly talking to institutional psychiatrists? Most private cash psychiatrists (a large % now) have much lower volume and incorporate therapy.
I thought the last couple years saw an increase in private psychiatrists incorporating at least supportive therapy seeing as a 99214+30min therapy add on code for a 30min appointment pays fairly well?
I just got accepted into med school for this cycle -- I mentioned my interest in psychiatry, and it did not seem to be an issue. Granted, I have experience working with people that have mental illness, and I am a non-trad applicant. So not exactly an undergrad -- but I think if she has relevant experience and can communicate that she is interested in medicine and psychiatry, then she should be fine.One of my students mentioned that she has been told to avoid mentioning psychiatry in her materials and interviews. Does that sound accurate (remember this is coming from an undergrad)?
Just to echo the above--this field is becoming more and more technical in nature (personally, I'm not sure if this is a good thing, but it is what it is) and not necessarily a good fit for people who come mainly from a psych background. I would add that undergrad training in statistics and pharmacology, and some econ/business training are more important these days for this field than a typical undergrad psych[ology] curriculum.
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Biggest piece of advice is that they need to want to become a physician, not just a psychiatrist. That means they're going to have to learn all of the biochemistry, physiology, pathology, anatomy, etc of every body system and rotate through numerous fields like OB/Gyn, surgery, IM, EM, etc. It will be a minimum of 4 years before they actually get to focus on psychiatry and it will likely be longer as they will still have to rotate through non-psych fields (IM, neuro, geri, etc) during intern year of residency depending on the program (minimum 4 months of non-psych per ACGME requirements).
I love psychiatry and have been enjoying residency a ton so far. However, if I hadn't wanted to be a physician I would have been completely miserable for the past 4.5 years. I'd willing to bet that if I hadn't wanted to be a medical physician before discovering psychiatry I would probably say it wouldn't be worth it. So my advice to them would be to make sure they actually want to study MEDICINE and not just psychiatry.