Dual applying psych with a mostly peds background

[DO_or_Die]

I'm planning to dual apply psych and peds. Psych is my top choice with plans to go into child psych. Have a peds background prior to med school, in med school I have volunteered 150+ hours at a free clinic, done research in community health peds and only have ~15 hours of volunteering at a homeless clinic with plans to volunteer more.

Have really fallen in love with psych over this last rotation and feel that I'm a good fit for the specialty. I honored the psych shelf if that matters and am going to try and get more exposure to psych by doing a psych sub-i. I'm realistic and see how competitive psych has become, therefore I also want to interview in peds by the chance I don't match psych. Does my sudden switch and 'lack of long term commitment' raise a red flag for psych or can I spin it in a way that my peds background would benefit me in child psych? (Which I truly do believe that it will).

Is this an unwise idea? Thank you.

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[clozareal]

Most of my medical school experience was Peds too and I also said I wanted to go into child psych, which I eventually did.

Why would it be an unwise idea to do that? Do you not want to do child psych and afraid of lying to them? Preferences change all the time, especially throughout training. If you told me I would go into private practice when I graduated medical school, I would have laughed in your face. I never thought I would go into private practice but academia jaded me enough to shun it.

 

[DO_or_Die]

Most of my medical school experience was Peds too and I also said I wanted to go into child psych, which I eventually did.

Why would it be an unwise idea to do that? Do you not want to do child psych and afraid of lying to them? Preferences change all the time, especially throughout training. If you told me I would go into private practice when I graduated medical school, I would have laughed in your face. I never thought I would go into private practice but academia jaded me enough to shun it.

By unwise I mean in terms of dual applying since I've read on other threads that psychiatry seems to care about this kind of a thing. I would go all in but after reading that there were basically no unfilled seats in the latest match it has me worried. I would hate to SOAP into neither of these specialties by not dual applying although it will be more of a headache in doing so.

 

[nexus73]

dual apply and keep it a secret

 

[calvnandhobbs68]

Nah I think you'll be fine. It's wise to have peds as your backup anyway because there's still a pathway from peds into child psych in case you end up in peds but still think you want to do child psych.

Post Pediatric Portal Programs

www.aacap.org

 

[Merovinge]

By unwise I mean in terms of dual applying since I've read on other threads that psychiatry seems to care about this kind of a thing. I would go all in but after reading that there were basically no unfilled seats in the latest match it has me worried. I would hate to SOAP into neither of these specialties by not dual applying although it will be more of a headache in doing so.

Given how non-competitive peds is, if you are really set on child psych I would just apply broadly for psych and then SOAP into peds if needed. You can actually do child psych from peds through a portal program (if that still exists), it ends up being 6 years instead of 5 but you would have a far greater medical peds knowledge base.

In the event that SOAP is concerning for you, I don't think it would be a problem to discuss being all-in on psych but that you have back up peds applications with a plan of going into child psych from there if needed. I personally would appreciate someone that dedicated to a specific cause, especially one as important as child psych (totally not biased here).

 

[comp1]

I don't think this is a big problem. You don't need to be born into a long line of psychiatrists and have a star appear during your birth foretelling your psychiatry career. If you developed the interest during 3rd year, in most cases, that's good enough, particularly if you're honoring stuff. If you can tolerate peds if you matched into it, then sure, apply as a backup. I would say consider SOAP more if you don't match at all than as any sort of plan.

 

[calvnandhobbs68]

Given how non-competitive peds is, if you are really set on child psych I would just apply broadly for psych and then SOAP into peds if needed. You can actually do child psych from peds through a portal program (if that still exists), it ends up being 6 years instead of 5 but you would have a far greater medical peds knowledge base.

In the event that SOAP is concerning for you, I don't think it would be a problem to discuss being all-in on psych but that you have back up peds applications with a plan of going into child psych from there if needed. I personally would appreciate someone that dedicated to a specific cause, especially one as important as child psych (totally not biased here).

It's not super easy to SOAP into peds though and peds is actually more competitive relative to other "less competitive" specialities than one might think. There are less US MD applicants as a percentage of total applicants to categorical IM and FM positions (the next two "generalist" type specialities) and way more spots offered in SOAP for those specialities. Avg Step 1 and 2 scores are actually slightly higher for peds than psychiatry. There were only 86 categorical spots (out of 2986) left to SOAP into this year after the match and they were likely pretty undesirable programs.

 

[Dantes]

Nobody should have a plan to SOAP, even as backup, and as mentioned above peds doesn't have many SOAP spots anyway. It's an awful process and an absolute last resort. OP if you apply to enough psych programs I think you would be fine, but applying to some peds programs you like as backup isn't a bad idea if you can afford it and get separate letters (and obviously would be happy matching peds). Dual applying isn't as difficult anymore especially in the virtual era.

 

[zenmedic]

I dual applied PM&R/psych this past cycle and was really happy that I did. It gives you peace of mind during the interview process, since you're basically getting twice as many interviews and you know you'll match at least somewhere. With interviews being virtual, there's essentially no risk of being found out. I switched from rehab to psych literally a week before the eras applications were due, got plenty of interviews, and still matched at my number 1, with an application that screamed PM&R. I think the main reason it worked out for me was because I had high scores. The biggest bang for your buck right now will be to do well on step 2. A great step score will do more for you than any other activity you could be doing right now. Of course you don't need a super high score to match, it just makes everything easier. Study hard and good luck. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.

I'm also a DO btw!

 

[Merovinge]

It's not super easy to SOAP into peds though and peds is actually more competitive relative to other "less competitive" specialities than one might think. There are less US MD applicants as a percentage of total applicants to categorical IM and FM positions (the next two "generalist" type specialities) and way more spots offered in SOAP for those specialities. Avg Step 1 and 2 scores are actually slightly higher for peds than psychiatry. There were only 86 categorical spots (out of 2986) left to SOAP into this year after the match and they were likely pretty undesirable programs.

Fair enough, I am not young enough anymore to know the current data that well. It would be very reasonable to dual apply then.

 

[FlowRate]

I wonder if interviews will stay remote forever. There were a few things I disliked about the residency interview/recruitment culture at my residency and it was specifically just how much they cared about figuring out if prospective residents were dual-applying (caught on residency tour with a different specialty the same week), truly "loved and wanted psych," or were super specifically into our program. IMO if they'd be a very strong resident (very personable, evidence of very high performance in residency), who cares if they matched with you because they didn't get into derm/ortho/MGH? They could have chosen any other specialty to dual-apply to or any other rank list of psych programs but they chose psych and ranked us high enough to match here.