@samac , I'm jacking your thread for a minute, lol.
so you didnt talk about your grades, volunteering, or NAMI stuff. what did you talk about? is it like med school interviews but instead of "why medicine" its "why psych"?
It's much more laid back. Most of the places I interviewed at while applying were basically "I see you put this in your app, tell me about it" which then led into random convos. Some memorable convos I recall were: talking with a chief about why Clozapine is great, talking to an attending about being semi-pro in the same sport, talking to a PD about his kid playing the same sport at a college I'd played against, talking to a different attending who seemed to be trying to suggest that I should be worried about developing CTE because of playing said sport (this was my least favorite interaction by far, and I made my disdain pretty obvious), talking about food from New Orleans, favorite foods to cook, favorite books/movies/tv, etc. I remember one where it was me and 4 or 5 residents just talking and one resident tried to pimp me on something basic, everyone else started giving him crap and it was fun overall.
Of course you'll get some of the "why psych" or "what area are you interested in" questions, but it's way more laid back than med school interviews. The most important thing for a psych interview is to just be a normal person and interact without too much awkwardness or coming across as a tool.
So, you matched mid tier university psych without research? That's so comforting bc I'm not sure i can get my hands on clinical research as an OMS I/ OMS II. I don't really want to do bench research in med school, the time commitment is too much for med school and it's not really something I'm that interested in.
Research is not necessary at all in psych unless you're shooting for a top tier program that has a heavy research focus or an MD/PHD program. Doing a case conference, clinical research, or presenting at a conference will look good. Not having any research will not be a hindrance though.
Honestly I wouldn't consult half of the people I consult if my attendings didn't want it. And I also think that while I'm on consult services we are far too overconsulted for the most basic **** without any attempt at working things up.
Ironically after writing this the old psychiatrist actually got fired and got replaced by others. So the service is better and more streamlined and have actually helped with some folks.
Agree with Hallow that it sounds like your service sucked. My program has a very robust C/L service with >6 attendings, most of whom are med/psych trained. Yes, there are a lot of dumb consults placed, but I've seen some pretty cool stuff on consults and we definitely have to have a strong knowledge of medicine to function here. We see CJD cases here and there, I've had some pretty interesting cultural disorders, anxiety d/t PE (which initial CTs didn't pick up but did on re-imaging), cholinergic toxicity d/t benztropine, psychosis d/t PMDD, severe MDD with transient global amnesia 2/2 low T, etc.
A good C/L psychiatrist isn't just doing CYA on suicidal patients or advising when to transfer to inpatient psych. It's also part of the job to catch medical causes for psych issues or medication side effects that the PCPs may not know about (like valproic acid-induced hypothermia).
