Getting a pgy2 spot is not so competitive but you will not have much of a choice. get a pgy1 anywhere and transfer. also go to that residency swap site and maybe you can swap spots with someone who has pgy1 psych. if you don't get pgy1 this year, do research and apply to more programs. I applied to every program and went to as many possible interviews (I was quite infamous on some of the forums for this approach back around 2006).
Confused and devastated without a match
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psychiatrywhy
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Yeah I didn't go this route because I need to be in a city due to my partner's job. I couldn't risk taking just *any* PGY2 spot if I went with a prelim. How many interviews did you go on, if you don't mind me asking? I'm considering applying to ~100 programs.
Btw, I'm very pissed off at my school's administration. When I was applying, they told me to apply to "20 programs, max" because they thought I was a shoo-in for psychiatry...... ugh. I ended up applying to 33, but apparently that still wasn't enough.
I applied to all the programs. I was an IMG. Pm me for more.
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Absolutely. I know someone who was applying this year that was told by their med school advisor to apply to psych over family medicine as a “backup specialty”. I went over 2018 charting the outcomes with them to show them objectively why this was a stupid idea.
OP, I also want to mention that you may have done nothing wrong. I suspect that this is most likely the case. The match is a noisy/stochastic process. This means that there will be some good applicants like you who do not match just by chance. There are also good applicants who match way down their list just by chance. This is especially true nowadays with more medical students than quality psychiatry spots.
I am sorry that this happened to you. It sucks to have worked so hard to only feel rejected or devalued. It seems "devastating" because you have probably been luckily enough to score nothing but net your entire life from elementary school. Stuff like this will likely happen multiple times in your career. Analyze what went wrong, if anything, but don't over-analyze yourself into depression. Then brush off the dirt and try again.
I am sorry that this happened to you. It sucks to have worked so hard to only feel rejected or devalued. It seems "devastating" because you have probably been luckily enough to score nothing but net your entire life from elementary school. Stuff like this will likely happen multiple times in your career. Analyze what went wrong, if anything, but don't over-analyze yourself into depression. Then brush off the dirt and try again.
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This is amazing advice, and judging from those Step scores I think a likely accurate prediction. I wish I would have listened to something more concrete like this when I had some difficulties with medical school.
As a CAP, I think Alfred said it best "Why do we fall sir? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up."
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That is absolute lunacy
With good pre-app research you really shouldn't apply to more than 30ish places
With good pre-app research you really shouldn't apply to more than 30ish places
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I think average interview yield is 20-30%, so you are still putting yourself in something of a risk zone with that many I would think.
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Assuming you're truly, on paper, as good a candidate as you appear to be, and assuming you aren't odious to behold conversationally, which doesn't seem to be the case at first glance...then maybe you're just unremarkable in the best possible way.
There are people who do everything perfectly competently, who are pleasant to be around, and who make little to no fuss. We often look right past them because nothing stands out, but really, that's a pretty honorable standard to try to achieve in life. The vast majority of people on earth are noteworthy for insufferable reasons.
As far as practical advice goes, however, you need a job anywhere ASAP. I can only imagine the strain this puts on you and your partner, but here's the thing -- you're not going to be a better candidate when you apply next year. Unlike folks who might benefit from a year of research to put on their CV, or a crack at Step III to show they can take a test well, or perhaps a year of therapy to help people not want to punch them in the face during an interview, you're a good candidate now -- one who got unlucky.
The clock starts on your time not practicing medicine on July 1st. The longer that time period is, the less likely it is you'll get a position. A year not practicing is a professional malignancy. Trust me on this. The good news for you is, some medical students won't last the first month in their internship, a few won't end up being able to start on time for various reasons, and a few programs will 'find' a spot they didn't know about. These things happen much more frequently than you think, and most of the time they won't even be advertised.
You would do well to accept that you might be apart from your partner for a period of time, hard as that is. Ask the PD at your alma mater to watch on the private AADPRT list serv for open slots. You sit down every day and write to 20 programs in family medicine, internal medicine and pediatrics. Pick a state or city and do it. Continue until you've covered the entire country, or someone offers to talk to you about an open slot. Then you go there, work your ass off, then take a PGY-2 spot from a departing psychiatry intern who couldn't cut it -- there are a good handful every year.
There are people who do everything perfectly competently, who are pleasant to be around, and who make little to no fuss. We often look right past them because nothing stands out, but really, that's a pretty honorable standard to try to achieve in life. The vast majority of people on earth are noteworthy for insufferable reasons.
As far as practical advice goes, however, you need a job anywhere ASAP. I can only imagine the strain this puts on you and your partner, but here's the thing -- you're not going to be a better candidate when you apply next year. Unlike folks who might benefit from a year of research to put on their CV, or a crack at Step III to show they can take a test well, or perhaps a year of therapy to help people not want to punch them in the face during an interview, you're a good candidate now -- one who got unlucky.
The clock starts on your time not practicing medicine on July 1st. The longer that time period is, the less likely it is you'll get a position. A year not practicing is a professional malignancy. Trust me on this. The good news for you is, some medical students won't last the first month in their internship, a few won't end up being able to start on time for various reasons, and a few programs will 'find' a spot they didn't know about. These things happen much more frequently than you think, and most of the time they won't even be advertised.
You would do well to accept that you might be apart from your partner for a period of time, hard as that is. Ask the PD at your alma mater to watch on the private AADPRT list serv for open slots. You sit down every day and write to 20 programs in family medicine, internal medicine and pediatrics. Pick a state or city and do it. Continue until you've covered the entire country, or someone offers to talk to you about an open slot. Then you go there, work your ass off, then take a PGY-2 spot from a departing psychiatry intern who couldn't cut it -- there are a good handful every year.
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I really don’t mean to make you feel bad OP, and I admire your dedication to psych. But holy moly, never in a quadrillion years would I or anybody I know would turn down a guaranteed Rad Onc spot (!!) for the *possibility* of matching psych in the future. Again, I am so sorry for all that you are going through, but psych is not at all as appealing anymore as more and more NP/PA’s are encroach us from every direction. This was a terrible decision in my opinion, unless you have zero student loans, zero responsibilities, tons of money, and are just pursuing a career for leisure.
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Um? Rad Onc for all it's former glory is a very saturated field right now, and if the idea of dealing with computer software mixed with dying people all day is not your forte, taking the spot so you can be miserable in a very niche field that almost no one thinks of when they think of medicine is not a "terrible decision". Psychiatry is increasingly competitive the opposite of "not at all as appealing anymore", I think you may be a bit confused about recent history here.
Mid levels are a significant concern, but this is the case for almost every field of medicine. Don't worry, soon deep and narrow learning AI is going to ruffle many field's feathers. Capitated payments could cleave salaries for surgeons by a huge percentage almost overnight. I really worry about medical students who choose fields based on their reading of the tea leaves for best business outlook. At it's core, medicine is absolutely still medicine, you are in the business of being with people during their hardest moments in life and healing. This comes at personal cost and If you choose a field where you don't feel fulfilled, it'll be a long ride.
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In the 80s, managed care was going to ruin all that was good about being a doctor. The sky was falling and no one with any intelligence at all would be applying to medical school within a decade.
Don't worry about mid levels. They are a drop in the bucket compared with the sea of primary care doctors treating our patients with limited psych training because there are not enough of us.
Don't worry about mid levels. They are a drop in the bucket compared with the sea of primary care doctors treating our patients with limited psych training because there are not enough of us.
