Good/diverse clinical training and great research opportunities?

[pseudodoc]

Now that we're approaching the meat of interview season, here's my conundrum: I've interviewed at some places, all of which are good for research, but I am also really interested in getting solid, diverse, clinical training as well. I've heard (and read here) different things about what that entails, one of which is that exposure to private/county/VA settings is key. Can one get good training in places that don't provide multiple hospital settings (as stated above), or are places that don't expose you to different hospital settings good in a different way? For example, MGH doesn't necessarily give you VA exposure to my knowledge, but they do have McClean. Pros/cons to that?

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[masterofmonkeys]

I dunno how helpful VA exposure is in and of itself. most of the places I am eyeing actually DO NOT have VA exposure.

One thing that several VAs have that a lot of places don't is substance abuse. But then again, a lot programs have that even without VA.

 

[diosa428]

VAs have a lot of PTSD too. I thought most programs had rotations at various hospitals (ie, the institution's hospital(s) + a state hospital or whatever). Is that not correct?

 

[strangeglove]

I think you're right to look for programs that offer diversity of training settings. I don't think that the VA is a paragon of diversity. It's a place where you see a lot of men (though this is becoming less so), and where certain diagnoses (e.g. PTSD, substance use disorders) are over-represented. I think a more useful kind of diversity is a program where you get exposure to both private and public (e.g. state, city) hospital settings. NYU, which has Tisch Hospital (private), Bellevue (city) and the VA is very diverse clinically, though NYU is somewhat lacking in the research department. Columbia provides exposure to both private and public inpatient settings and has great research and, though there is no VA exposure. Similar for Yale, which has Yale-New Haven Hospital and also the Connecticut Mental Health Center. MGH/McClean is all private, though there is excellent research.

 

[pseudodoc]

Good points by all. Lets say that I were interested in PTSD, and a program didn't necessarily have a VA. Could that be overcome by having PTSD clinic or something similar? And I thought that the MGH program had state tpe experiences at Erich Lindemann MH Center, among others?

 

[Doc Samson]

Good points by all. Lets say that I were interested in PTSD, and a program didn't necessarily have a VA. Could that be overcome by having PTSD clinic or something similar? And I thought that the MGH program had state tpe experiences at Erich Lindemann MH Center, among others?

Are MGHers still rotating there? I know they pulled the MGH faculty and it's now all BU folks.

 

[pseudodoc]

Are MGHers still rotating there? I know they pulled the MGH faculty and it's now all BU folks.

Dunno about the faculty, but the I guess the residents still are (at least according to the program website)....

 

[pseudodoc]

bump

 

[BobA]

Duke

 

[Chimed]

UMich

 

[billypilgrim37]

It would be a much shorter list to list places that, given excellent research opportunities, didn't also have excellent, diverse clinical training.

The "well that place is good for research but they don't have good clinical training" meme is a fiction made up by insecure people who feel inadequate about their program that has "great clinical training, but not much research." Of course, if you're uninterested in research, there is no reason to feel inadequate about being at a program that trains you to be a good clinician but has limited research.

You will also hear this meme from people who trained at strong East coast programs that resent that there are programs more than two hours from the ocean that also receive grant money.

I would challenge anyone to name a single research powerhouse that doesn't have strong clinical training. I certainly didn't find any programs like that.

 

[pseudodoc]

It would be a much shorter list to list places that, given excellent research opportunities, didn't also have excellent, diverse clinical training.

The "well that place is good for research but they don't have good clinical training" meme is a fiction made up by insecure people who feel inadequate about their program that has "great clinical training, but not much research." Of course, if you're uninterested in research, there is no reason to feel inadequate about being at a program that trains you to be a good clinician but has limited research.

You will also hear this meme from people who trained at strong East coast programs that resent that there are programs more than two hours from the ocean that also receive grant money.

I would challenge anyone to name a single research powerhouse that doesn't have strong clinical training. I certainly didn't find any programs like that.

That's a good point.....a person who's part of the leadership from my own program had less than good things to say about UCLA when I mentioned places that I was applying, which went along the lines of "it's a great place to do research, but I'm not sure you end up getting as good of clinical training as here." It made me question what people consider "good clinical training", since I tended to think that places with good research would have good training as well. That said (and as a side note) what do people really think about UCLA/Mt Sinai similar places in terms of clinical training? Maybe I should start another forum for that

 

[BobA]

It would be a much shorter list to list places that, given excellent research opportunities, didn't also have excellent, diverse clinical training.

The "well that place is good for research but they don't have good clinical training" meme is a fiction made up by insecure people who feel inadequate about their program that has "great clinical training, but not much research." Of course, if you're uninterested in research, there is no reason to feel inadequate about being at a program that trains you to be a good clinician but has limited research.

You will also hear this meme from people who trained at strong East coast programs that resent that there are programs more than two hours from the ocean that also receive grant money.

I would challenge anyone to name a single research powerhouse that doesn't have strong clinical training. I certainly didn't find any programs like that.

I agree with what you're saying.

Good clinical training can probably be found at all research powerhouses, but I mentioned Duke because I was impressed by the quality of psychotherapy training. There might be other places that are similar, but of the places I've seen so far (only 1/2 way through interviews) Duke had the best formal psychotherapy training.

 

[Doc Samson]

It would be a much shorter list to list places that, given excellent research opportunities, didn't also have excellent, diverse clinical training.

The "well that place is good for research but they don't have good clinical training" meme is a fiction made up by insecure people who feel inadequate about their program that has "great clinical training, but not much research." Of course, if you're uninterested in research, there is no reason to feel inadequate about being at a program that trains you to be a good clinician but has limited research.

You will also hear this meme from people who trained at strong East coast programs that resent that there are programs more than two hours from the ocean that also receive grant money.

I would challenge anyone to name a single research powerhouse that doesn't have strong clinical training. I certainly didn't find any programs like that.

The question was for good AND diverse clinical training, which I think most of us read as including good psychotherapy training. There are certainly programs out there that have great research opportuinites but pay minimal lip-service to psychotherapy training.

 

[tomato]

NYP - Cornell has a reputation for great psychotherapy training and a lot of their residents are doing research during residency... no specific research track per se, but it appears that the residents can work with mentors at their freestanding psych hospital in Westchester as well as the main campus at Payne Whitney.