Child/adolescent fellowships

It's the PARENTS!

 

I could be misinformed but, from what I've heard child psych doctors actually tend to get paid more than adult psych, on average.

 

I totally agree. From my GP experience, the worst part of treating any child (especially child with neurological or psychological problems) is dealing with the parents. Can you imagine seeing kids with conduct disorder in the out-patients? I can. But seeing their parents....

 

Yep. I believe they average between 20 and 30K more per year.

 

Although my frame of reference is limited, I've never met a child psychiatrist who didn't love his or her job. An extra 20 or 30K per year isn't worth doing a job one would not be happy with. Working with kids and parents seems great to me, but it obviously isn't for everyone. But we'll see once I hit the "real world" next year in residency...

 

It is my impression that C-A Psychiatrists frequently do a mixture of adult psych and child psych. My friend in SF who is a CA psychiatrist says she "can't afford" to do 100% C-A psych b/c "there is so much paperwork, phonecalls, etc when you are dealing with kids--each billable hour easily spins into 1.5 or 2 hours. I have to do adults in order to make up for doing the kids".

I heard this from another C-A psychiatrist in Florida as well.

Is my sample size too small or is this the way things really are for C-A psychiatrists?

 

I really like C-A, but one of the residency directors that I interviewed with mentioned that a large percentage of applicants mentioned wanting to go into C-A, but most end up not doing it when it comes down to the line. So I have decided to take a wait and see approach. My med school (Loma Linda) has an awesome C-A psych unit and it is lots of fun to do rotations there. I wondered if I was not getting a clear picture of what C-A is really like after some other things I have heard from various sources.