Is psychiatry residency different than other residencies?

[Senor Hound]

I mean this in a more specific sense than the obvious differences in content.

What I really want to know is if the hectic rounds everyone else talks about are common in psychiatry. Does a psychiatry residency have a different feel to it than a (for example) ped or IM residency?

Thanks ahead of time for any answers I may get. I'll admit I'm very uneducated about what residents do and how it differs from attendings, but hopefully you can see past my ignorance and give me an answer (please?).

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[michaelrack]

It varies from residency program to residency program, but usually rounds in psychiatry are much less intense than in IM. There is less pre-rounding in psychiatry. The ratio of time spent in which the resident presents the patient to the attending to the time spent seeing the pt together is usually weighted more towards seeing the pt together in psychiatry.

 

[whopper]

Agree with the above. It varies per program. However I would say in general the degree of intensity is not as high because you don't have patients in situations where they can medically code at any moment. I remember a particular nightmare scenario as a medstudent where I was assigned a patient in the ICU and the poor person had 6 consults following her on a daily basis, none of which were legible and a chart so thick it had to be split into 3 charts. The primary attending didn't have legible notes either. When the attending asked me what was going on, I didn't know, and I had to spend about half an hour to read 1 consult because the handwriting was so bad. Now this is for a patient that could've died at any moment, so each time the attending cussed me, I was upset too, but heck, I just got the patient 30 minutes before he started pimping me on it. I felt like telling him that it wasn't my fault the consult attendings weren't following JCAHO rules by writing their notes illegibly, and no one gave me a sign out. This was in a hospital where if a medstudent or resident complained at all--you were pretty much finished.

Problems happen in psyche--but not like that.

I think also on a "cultural level" psychiatrists don't want to be the stereotype pimp attending that is sometimes seen in other residencies because the qualities in an attending pimp often times denotes a personality disorder or Intermittent Explosive Disorder. That's something a psychiatrist will pick up on much easier than docs in other fields.

(And yes, I am saying that several attendings I've had as a medical student IMHO had a personality DO or IED).

Remember, this is in general. I have heard of programs that work psyche residents on par or worse than some IM residencies.

 

[kumar28]

psych is much more laid back and I believe that goes for most programs.