Future trend?

[Anasazi23]

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According to Psych News, UC Irvine matched a whopping 18% of their MS-IV class into psychiatry. Is the "best-kept" secret getting out? Or is this just a blip?

http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/43/7/2

 

[Faebinder]

😱Alright folks, listen up, we need to make a plan.

From now on... Any student asking about psychiatry, we need to make it look horrible. Some of us got loans to pay you know?


1) Make sure they know that we take call a lot as psychiatrist. This rumor of q7 call or q14 is just rumors... no sane physician would demean himself/herself to take call once per 2 weeks when it's clear that you get respect if you are on q3 or q4 call like IM. 😉 Heck unless it's q2 it aint worth it.

2) We are not family friendly... that would be "FAMILY" medicine.

3) We don't do ANY medicine in psychiatry... it's all psychotherapy. That would be Neurology down the hallway on the right thank you.

4) Finally, we all know Psychiatrist go to Psychiatry to analyze themselves. So if you are not somewhat odd then please don't bring your "normal" self to our group.

With these 4 things in mind, we can set ourselves forth and deflect the revelation of this horrible rumor about Psychiatry being a cool secret subspecialty and our reimburisement will remain unscathed.

 

[futuredo32]

😱Alright folks, listen up, we need to make a plan.

From now on... Any student asking about psychiatry, we need to make it look horrible. Some of us got loans to pay you know?


1) Make sure they know that we take call a lot as psychiatrist. This rumor of q7 call or q14 is just rumors... no sane physician would demean himself/herself to take call once per 2 weeks when it's clear that you get respect if you are on q3 or q4 call like IM. 😉

2) We are not family friendly... that would be "FAMILY" medicine.

3) We don't do ANY medicine in psychiatry... it's all psychotherapy. That would be Neurology down the hallway on the right thank you.

4) Finally, we all know Psychiatrist go to Psychiatry to analyze themselves. So if you are not somewhat odd then please don't bring your "normal" self to our group.

With these 4 things in mind, we can set ourselves forth and deflect the revelation of this horrible rumor about Psychiatry being a cool secret subspecialty and our reimburisement will remain unscathed.

👍

Too bad it couldn't have stayed the best kept secret until after the 2009 match.😛

 

[Lauraaa]

I agree. Sounds like a good plan.

I think UC-Irvine has always had a history of really turning out a large percent of their class to psychiatry. But yeah, Idon't think it's ever been that high before.

 

[whopper]

The best kept secret may turn a dream into a nightmare. (Though yes, I get the joke!)

Several hospitals have attendings they are not happy with but cannot replace them, and its not like those hospitals are being overbearing. Some of those attendings just plain blow but get to keep their jobs.

Several areas are experiencing severe shortages of psychiatrists. While its great for us--we need to be out for the patients, not ourselves.

The severe shortage is giving psychology ground in getting states to allow them to prescribe.

(let's not turn this into a psychology bashing thread. I am against psychologists getting prescribing power but I am not against psychology. Several of the best people in the business are psychologists & they are our colleagues).

(edited because I cut & paste--a double post within a post)
That particular school's psychiatry dept may have kick butt teaching & that may have influenced the students at their program.

 

[nitemagi]

That would be interesting to decode what Dr. Mcguire's secret is...

 

[Chrismander]

The best kept secret may turn a dream into a nightmare. (Though yes, I get the joke!)
...
Several areas are experiencing severe shortages of psychiatrists. While its great for us--we need to be out for the patients, not ourselves.

totally agree with you here, more and better psychiatrists can only be a good thing--god knows the wait to see a shrink is awful in some parts of the country. the thing is though, will this newfound interest in psych among students actually affect the number of psychiatrists? I was under the impression that the field more or less filled all its spots (incidentally, do any fields actually not fill, or does everything get filled up with the scramble and IMG's?). Unless programs suddenly start expanding, wouldn't a sudden upturn in AMG applications just increase the proportion of AMG psychiatrists we graduate every year?

 

[whopper]

will this newfound interest in psych among students actually affect the number of psychiatrists?

Well I read the article and it didn't make it out like this is a national trend, only what's going on at that university. (Unless I missed something, I read through it quickly).

If someone could analyze this year's number of unmatched spots vs previous years, that'd be a way to tell if the trend is really changing.

Only thing I can think of that might make the national trend change is the new HBO show with the psychiatrist. When ER came out, supposedly the number of medical students applying into ER skyrocketed, which ticked off all my medschool buddies who wanted to do ER. IT made it that much tougher for them and several of the applicants wanted ER because they were hot into George Clooney.

(I don' think the HBO show is making much of an impact Heard its a great show but its only on pay-TV & its not like its the #1 show).

My own program had a disproportionately high number of medstudents go into psychiatry, IMHO because we had one of the best teaching docs in the state-Jeffrey Dunn, M.D (not joking, and he consistently won a Top Doc in NJ for years). IT was due to this guy's teaching, not because there was some type of new trend. Unfortunately for us, that attending left, and his spot has not yet been replaced.

Personally, if the number of medstudents going into psyche increased a bit, that'd be good IMHO. Too many of course would be bad for business, but what we got right now is definitely not enough. With a few more, there'd still be plenty of business to go around while helping out patients.

IMHO at least for the next several years unless something dramatically changes, there will not be many medstudents wanting to go into psyche. The personality types that get into medschool are often more drawn to fields with less subjectivity & have more physical sciences applications. Several medstudents are type A & want the job that crowns them as the over-achiever. Psychiatry often is not the field that appeals to these types. Several medschool doctors, & even attendings in hospitals tend to see psychiatry as something medstudents shouldn't go into.
-->Which if anything only increases the demand for us in this business. I went into it because I love psychiatry, not because of what other people think of what I should do.

 

[psychattack]

I think that the teaching and mentoring makes such a big difference. UC Irvine consistently has large numbers of students going into psychiatry, and many choosing to stay at UCI. Many of them are also highly ranked in their class. The Psychiatry department wins the clinical teaching awards all of the time. This is definitely a model we can learn from!

 

[freaker]

It's not that way everywhere. At my medical school of ~150 students per class, we're only having 2-3 students per year going into psych. I'm still wavering on psych v. peds, and as far as I know, there's only one other person who is interested.

It's odd, as almost everyone I talk to loves the rotation. They just don't see it as a legitimate medical field, I think. And I see where they're coming from. I was joking around with some of my ortho buddies the other day that not a one of us would be diving at the chance to be Superman if a guy collapsed and was dying in front of us with our career choices. And while that's not wholly true, I think it illustrates a point in that most of us went into the field of medicine with this idea of saving someone's life. Psych isn't quite that dynamic or immediate.

 

[Faebinder]

It's not that way everywhere. At my medical school of ~150 students per class, we're only having 2-3 students per year going into psych. I'm still wavering on psych v. peds, and as far as I know, there's only one other person who is interested.

It's odd, as almost everyone I talk to loves the rotation. They just don't see it as a legitimate medical field, I think. And I see where they're coming from. I was joking around with some of my ortho buddies the other day that not a one of us would be diving at the chance to be Superman if a guy collapsed and was dying in front of us with our career choices. And while that's not wholly true, I think it illustrates a point in that most of us went into the field of medicine with this idea of saving someone's life. Psych isn't quite that dynamic or immediate.

Neither is dermatology and radiology... but what the heck... dont tell them that.. lets just keep it all a secret. 👍😀

 

[michaelrack]

Personally, if the number of medstudents going into psyche increased a bit, that'd be good IMHO. Too many of course would be bad for business, but what we got right now is definitely not enough.
.

If this is a trend, the number of psychiatrists won't change much. There will just be a higher proportion of US med grad to IMG psychiatrists.