we're not all guys. But you knew that.
🙂
how competitive are the psych residences at u mass, harvard, tufts, etc? anyone interview there? any tips or advice on doing away electives there? any info on ppl whom i should got in contact with?
If you have interests in specific programs, you should certainly schedule some away rotations there. If you can't schedule psych rotations, then go for rotations where you might get face time on the psych wards (e.g., medicine consults). If they've worked with you and know that you do good work and get along with faculty, residents, and staff, then that would be a bonus for your application come ranklist season.
(You will obtain 15 different opinons on this issue from SDN contributors. Some will suggest that, if you look better on paper than in person, then perhaps you should forgo the away rotation and just count on your paper application to carry you through. I would have to agree with that, but only to a certain extent. Our program just interviewed an applicant who looked great on paper, but he had extremely poor social skills and on his interview day demonstrated a very impressive and pervasive immaturity. I have a feeling that our program will not be ranking him highly.)
Of the Harvard programs, I liked Cambridge Health Alliance best. Small program. Fabulous, fabulous, benefits. The medicine experience probably isn't as robust as you might get at other programs (eg., Columbia, Hopkins) but is probably enough for what you will need as a C-L psychiatrist and certainly will be sufficient for outpatient psychiatry practice. If you have interests in research, you might need to pick more carefully amongst the programs based on your specific research interests -- even though CHA is a "Harvard" program, by and large you won't have the same amount of access to faculty at the other hospitals. (And the same, of course, goes for access to CHA faculty if you do residency at one of the other Harvard programs. When I interviewed at CHA, I informed the PD at one of the other programs and had a sort of 'second look' dinner interview with a faculty member who had similar research interests. At the time, I liked CHA more than the other program and asked him whether there would still be opportunities for me to work with him if I matched at CHA. His response was kind of
comme ci comme ca; he suggested that I would receive a much higher degree of mentorship commitment and that there definitely would be fewer institutional hurdles to deal with, if I just matched at their program instead.)
Cheers
-AT.
