I was northeast regionally biased, so its hard for me to accurately tell you about midwest or west coast programs other than to say that it seems to be a general impression that Northeastern programs are more psychodynamic (especially in NYC and Boston) than other regions in the country.
Wash U is probably considered the Mecca of the biological psychiatry movement. I'm not saying you won't get training in all modalities at any solid instituation, you will, but its the relative amount and access to people with those philosophies that can flavor your training.
Penn for example, has ample access to Aaron Beck and his brethren, such that they seem to get strong cognitively behavioral training while there is less access and interest in CBT at, say, Cornell.
I know people that chose New York City small community hospital programs over big "name" institutions in the South or Midwest that were heavily interested simply because they found some solid training with specific things they liked in a city with a ridiculously robust millieu for psychiatry. And that was perfect for them.
In your case, if location doesn't matter, and research does, then the "name" institutions loosely fall in line with the research being done.
Some examples of big time research places that I know some things about include:
Pitt
Penn
Columbia
MGH
UCLA
Yale
For research, look at things like NIH dollars and go to institution web pages and look at what kind of publications and centers exist at each institution. You should be aware that Pitt, which basically exists solely to do research I hear and recruits heavily to have research oriented residents and encourages resident research, did not match all their spots in recent years. Some interpret this to mean that, despite its powerhouse research status, the training program itself had something less desirable about it (for me, its the location).
Keep in mind though, as a resident, unless you specifically seek out research, it isn't readily a part of your training. Some programs will carve out time for you but you have to provide specific goals and interests. Thats why it helps to have specific things in mind and look for specific people to work with. One way to find some big names in each field is to look at the APA guidelines for specific diseases and the Editing Board Members of each of those diseases are often prominent experts in that field that are active in research. Then you can match those people with the institutions where they work.
I think after doing some "research" into the topic, you will find that you can do "meaningful research" at like 50 plus different places. And the reality is that its probably neccesary to do a post residency research fellowship in whatever you are interested in anyway, so that means that you don't neccesarily have to do residency at, say, Columbia (where I think really the pinnacle of what is "meaningfully happening" resides). Rather, you can develop your interests in residency and then shoot for a fellowship at a place like that. It won't be that hard if you work hard and are genuinely interested in the research.
Good luck,
worriedwell
Thanks, worriedwell.
I definitely see your point about the whole "top ten" thing. It's kinda sad to be name-driven. I guess what I am desiring from "top ten" would be the community of scholars and the guidance to starting a meaningful academic career doing ... meaningful research.
That being said, I wonder what schools are considered to have good programs within the different fields of psychiatry. Also, which schools are better for the biomedical approach or the more psychotherapy-based appraoch? (is this the appropriate contrast?)
Would anyone mind sharing on this?
