How little psych can I do 4th year?

[i61164]

I am currently a third year and I will be applying for psych next year. My third year psych rotation is C/L and my attending said he would write me a letter. I know many of the psychiatrists at my school from interest group related activities and the like and I'm pretty sure I can get other letters from people. So tonight I was talking to my attending and he was saying "Why do a bunch of psych rotations in your 4th year of med school? Why not do stuff that you will never get to do again?" That got me thinking. I was planning to do one away rotation in psych next year, but can I get away with not doing more than that? How few months of psych would you do in your fourth year knowing that you will be doing a psych residency?

I have to do 2 AI's in different depts.
1 month of ED
1 month of ICU
5 electives
and I get a couple months of vacation

Right now I'm thinking about doing a month of each of the following:
outpatient neuro
sleep (if I can get it approved)
gen med (or a subspecialty)
family
psych (away)

Maybe for 1 of the AI's I can do C/A psych and the other in medicine.

Anyway, between the 3rd year rotation and my 4th year electives that would total 3 months of psych: C/L third year, C/A AI 4th year, Adult inpatient (away). What do you guys think?

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[DrIng]

I don't know the exact answer to your question but I think there are a few considerations:
Do what you like and will enjoy...
Do what will make intern year easier...
Do what will be easy...
Do what will give you good job prospects...

My advice would be that you will have lots of time to learn about psychiatry during residency and beyond where as lots of perioheral areas you may not get a chance to do... My 2 cents are that the choices you make may well depend on where you want to match etc. If you're going to findyourself doing months of inpatient medicine or neuro in a tough program it may make life more tolerable to brush on on those areas in 4th year. (plus there's a lot of be said for being a doctor first and a psychiatrist first... Doing a critical care rotation could be vital if you find yourself as the only doctor around having to run a code etc, people still expect psychaitrists to be abel to do this as well as everything else. So get a bit of breadth as well as depth!

 

[Chimed]

I don't know the exact answer to your question but I think there are a few considerations:
Do what you like and will enjoy...
Do what will make intern year easier...
Do what will be easy...
Do what will give you good job prospects...

My advice would be that you will have lots of time to learn about psychiatry during residency and beyond where as lots of perioheral areas you may not get a chance to do... My 2 cents are that the choices you make may well depend on where you want to match etc. If you're going to findyourself doing months of inpatient medicine or neuro in a tough program it may make life more tolerable to brush on on those areas in 4th year. (plus there's a lot of be said for being a doctor first and a psychiatrist first... Doing a critical care rotation could be vital if you find yourself as the only doctor around having to run a code etc, people still expect psychaitrists to be abel to do this as well as everything else. So get a bit of breadth as well as depth!

For what it's worth, I totally agree with DrIng's post. You also don't want to burn yourself out during 4th year. Intern year is tough and you'll have plently of time to work hard. Enjoy that last year!