Come full circle

[DD214_DOC]

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I started out in undergrad wanting to do psych, and spent the first two years of med school planning to do it. I've bounced around with IM, FM, surgery, and psych, and I think I've finally decided to stick with psychiatry.

Here's hoping I match into the Army's program! (Hawaii here I come!)

 

[2tall]

Beautiful feeling. Gotta love clarity. Congrats!

 

[Regnvejr]

Enjoy. It truly is a great field of exploring and helping people get better control over their lives.

Welcome.

 

[rpkall]

Someone from my program just matched to the Hawaii Psych program for the Army. If you don't already have someone to talk to about the process, PM me and I can put you in touch with him. If you're all set, great.

Good luck, and glad you came around!

The military needs good psychiatrists now, that's for sure.

 

[DD214_DOC]

Thanks,

I talked to someone from the program today so I think I'm set. Now, I do have a few questions regarding the rest of MSIV.

1) What should I be doing with my electives since I'm going into psych?

2) what should I be reading/familiar with to shine on my audition rotation at Tripler?

Thanks!

 

[rpkall]

Don't know much about Tripler, but here's what I would say for electives...

Identify an area of psych that would be most interesting to you -- not just academically, but also consider the patient population and whether you'd rather do inpatient or outpatient. Inpatient psych is a higher stress but higher yield rotation at most places, so if you don't have a lot of time, I would look into that. The downside is you can wind up doing more work for your patients with less time to study about their issues in an academic way.

Good electives for psych are, I think: inpatient/outpatient non-stroke neuro, basic science neuroanatomy (TA or something), inpatient medicine or peds, outpatient adolescent medicine (if you have an interest in child--a lot of this is actually psychosocial), and emergency medicine. Doing some of those gave me a smattering of different knowledge bases and experiences with different kinds of patients. I wish I had had time for ER and neuro, though, but I didn't.

Just my opinion. I'd like to see what other people say.

Good luck!

 

[Doc Samson]

In terms of electives, I'd do neuro for sure and maybe an ICU month. Other than that, I'd spend the time trying to see things that you'll never get to see again. I did an ENT month my fourth year just to see some of the crazy surgeries they do - some of the coolest experiences of medical school (but still not enough to lure me away from psychiatry).

For your away rotation, I agree that you should pick an area that you're likely to shine in (given your interest in IM etc., perhaps consider CL), then read specifically in that area (e.g., for CL read the MGH Handbook of Gen Hosp Psychiatry).

 

[DD214_DOC]

In terms of electives, I'd do neuro for sure and maybe an ICU month. Other than that, I'd spend the time trying to see things that you'll never get to see again. I did an ENT month my fourth year just to see some of the crazy surgeries they do - some of the coolest experiences of medical school (but still not enough to lure me away from psychiatry).

For your away rotation, I agree that you should pick an area that you're likely to shine in (given your interest in IM etc., perhaps consider CL), then read specifically in that area (e.g., for CL read the MGH Handbook of Gen Hosp Psychiatry).

Thanks for the advice. I mentioned to the PD during our conversation that I was interested in C&A psych, which is true. However, both my core and my elective were in C&A psych, so I'd like to see some of the other aspects of psychiatry. I'm thinking maybe I'll do a couple weeks of C-L psych and a couple of outpatient adult psych.

I'm *thinking* about ranking the one combined IM/psych program at WRAMC and seeing what happens, and listing the psych-only programs after that.

 

[Pershing]

Thanks for the advice. I mentioned to the PD during our conversation that I was interested in C&A psych, which is true. However, both my core and my elective were in C&A psych, so I'd like to see some of the other aspects of psychiatry. I'm thinking maybe I'll do a couple weeks of C-L psych and a couple of outpatient adult psych.

I'm *thinking* about ranking the one combined IM/psych program at WRAMC and seeing what happens, and listing the psych-only programs after that.

Cool. I'll be applying to the IM-Psych program and categorical Psych programs as well. I'll be at WRAMC from late September to October for the CCU and C-L Psych and TAMC in November for Inpt Psych and C-L Psych.