Child Psych or Child Neuro/NDD for Neurodevelopmental Disorders?

[Twub13]

I am an MS3, really interested in working with kid’s with developmental disabilities and cannot decide whether I want to do it through psych or Neuro (possibly NDD program) Child Psych: residency has better work life. Will also be certified to do adult psych if I wanted to work with adults too. Nice continuity of care. I worry I will miss doing ~physical~ medicine and primary care. Really get to help with behavioral/coping skills Child neuro: much harder residency from what I have heard. Also apparently less time working through behavioral issues which is what I really enjoy. NDD resident told me less continuity of care because they see a lot of patients coming in for diagnosis and never return. Less programs available. Would get to do some procedures and I LOVE hands on. Would be trained in peds too so I could get to do primary care if I wanted to.

I am going back and forth between whether I pick the one that may be easier but I could miss physical medicine or one that will be a much more rough residency but enable me to continue some physical medicine as well.

Any med students wanting to do this path have any opinions or have gotten any advice? Or any residents/attendings in here?
Could anyone speak to salary too as I will have so many loans.

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[babybrains]

I don't think psych really handles developmental disabilities much, at least at my institution; it's much more focused on psychiatric diagnoses, such as delirium/depression/anxiety/eating disorders/etc. I think realistically you'd be looking more between NDD versus Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, which is a fellowship after pediatrics. Both of those pathways would involve 6 years of training.

I am in child neuro (not NDD), and I enjoy it a lot. We do have a decent amount of exposure to developmental disabilities (especially ASD), but outside of our NDD attendings, we mostly just screen for genetic etiologies and refer to DBP/therapies for behavioral management.

 

[gyngyn]

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