maine medical center psychiatry

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Monisha

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Has anyone interviewed at the general psychiatry program at Maine? What do you think ? Any suggestions for my interview?
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My husband is a fellow student with me, and hes interested in psych at Maine Medical Center. Posting to see what others say!
 
I interviewed 6 years ago and loved it. Residents seemed happy and area was beautiful.
 
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Ironspy said:
I interviewed 6 years ago and loved it. Residents seemed happy and area was beautiful.
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I see your SDN account still says "resident" - did you end up going to MMC? Are you an attending now?

Is MMC DO-friendly?
 
TikiTorches said:
There's a doc on here going to Maine for addiction as a locums
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I don’t think she’s going to MMC which is in Portland. She will be in Bangor which is much less desirable.

I’m an attending now. I ranked MMC lower for family reasons and trained elsewhere.
 
TikiTorches said:
There's a doc on here going to Maine for addiction as a locums
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I don’t think she’s going to MMC which is in Portland. She will be in Bangor which is much less desirable.

I’m an attending now. I ranked MMC lower for family reasons and trained elsewhere.
 
I interviewed 5 years ago (oof, I am ancient) and had very positive experiences. Daniel Price was VERY impressive and one of my two top favourite PDs that I've talked to on the entire trail (the other being Schindleheim at Tufts). Their faculty seem to have a lot of MGHers who escaped Boston so I would imagine the quality of training is good. Portland is much cheaper compared to other NE programs, but is very rural. Residents seem to have good rapport and chill.

At the end of the day I didn't go there because 1) I wanted to be in Boston, and 2) their workload seems to be on the higher end, especially during the medicine months, whereas I was looking for a more cush program. But I imagine I would have been happy and become a decent psychiatrist had I gone.
 
Monocles said:
I interviewed 5 years ago (oof, I am ancient) and had very positive experiences. Daniel Price was VERY impressive and one of my two top favourite PDs that I've talked to on the entire trail (the other being Schindleheim at Tufts). Their faculty seem to have a lot of MGHers who escaped Boston so I would imagine the quality of training is good. Portland is much cheaper compared to other NE programs, but is very rural. Residents seem to have good rapport and chill.

At the end of the day I didn't go there because 1) I wanted to be in Boston, and 2) their workload seems to be on the higher end, especially during the medicine months, whereas I was looking for a more cush program. But I imagine I would have been happy and become a decent psychiatrist had I gone.
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Serious props for being honest about looking for something more cush. I am amazed that we can tell patients to be true to themselves, face their fears and then rank programs we know we will be unhappy at for "prestige" or whatever other reason comes up.
 
Monocles said:
Portland is much cheaper compared to other NE programs, but is very rural. Residents seem to have good rapport and chill.
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Meh, relative to New England in general and other New England programs, I wouldn't call Portland very rural. I wouldn't even call it rural. It's a small town.
 
Merovinge said:
Serious props for being honest about looking for something more cush. I am amazed that we can tell patients to be true to themselves, face their fears and then rank programs we know we will be unhappy at for "prestige" or whatever other reason comes up.
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Haha yeah. I've seen my fair share of misery from friends in various "brand name" programs. At the end of the day I'd rather be happy over anything else. Plus I feel like your academic pedigree only matters if you want to stay in academia and aim for the big names... even then it's not necessary 100% of the times.
 
I don't have any first hand experience there but I did work with a resident in a different field who completed medical school in Maine and raved about the program. When I told him I applied there his words were "Rank them number 1 if they invite you. For psychiatry, their PD is phenomenal, the attendings are brilliant and kind, and the residents are happy." In terms of Maine itself, I know he was a bit biased being from there but he intends to return there to practice because he missed it so much.
 
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I’m a psych resident at Maine Med and can confirm it’s pretty awesome here. I will echo all of the positives above: Dr Price is a fantastic human, the faculty Ive worked with have been wonderful and my coresidents are great. I’m not sure about the “not cush” thing. We do 4 months of medicine and work like typical medicine interns. The hours are long but the people are great. And it’s only 4 months. The culture at Maine Med is very collegial and I have had almost exclusively positive interactions with residents and attendings across many specialties

Portland itself is a great small city. But close to the ocean, forest and mountains.

I would say that there is a strong appreciation here of what the biopsychosocial model and psychotherapy can bring to psychiatry across many settings.

Any other more specific questions I am happy to answer.
 
PsychApplicant90 said:
I’m a psych resident at Maine Med and can confirm it’s pretty awesome here. I will echo all of the positives above: Dr Price is a fantastic human, the faculty Ive worked with have been wonderful and my coresidents are great. I’m not sure about the “not cush” thing. We do 4 months of medicine and work like typical medicine interns. The hours are long but the people are great. And it’s only 4 months. The culture at Maine Med is very collegial and I have had almost exclusively positive interactions with residents and attendings across many specialties
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heh heh 😛
 
Monocles said:
I interviewed 5 years ago (oof, I am ancient) and had very positive experiences. Daniel Price was VERY impressive and one of my two top favourite PDs that I've talked to on the entire trail (the other being Schindleheim at Tufts). Their faculty seem to have a lot of MGHers who escaped Boston so I would imagine the quality of training is good. Portland is much cheaper compared to other NE programs, but is very rural. Residents seem to have good rapport and chill.

At the end of the day I didn't go there because 1) I wanted to be in Boston, and 2) their workload seems to be on the higher end, especially during the medicine months, whereas I was looking for a more cush program. But I imagine I would have been happy and become a decent psychiatrist had I gone.
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Were you interviewed for an hour?? I was interviewed for an hour long. Though I enjoyed discussing and telling him all my future plans!!
 
Monisha said:
Were you interviewed for an hour?? I was interviewed for an hour long. Though I enjoyed discussing and telling him all my future plans!!
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I can't remember how long it was.

(At the risk of revealing my identity) I remember Dr Price asking "what patient population" I had most difficulty with in medical school. I think I said something along the lines of "I usually get suckered by borderline patients and play into their palms" and he laughed. At the end of the interview he shook my hand and said "if you come here I'll teach you not to be a sucker". 😛

I left feeling very warm and fuzzy. 😀
 
psychapp121 said:
yeah it is..that’s so pointless. You could doother months with that time and have 2 months of medicine
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This is the last time in your career that you will have dedicated time to learn medicine. Nothing speaks louder to the need for medicine than saying that it's pointless.
 
Mass Effect said:
This is the last time in your career that you will have dedicated time to learn medicine. Nothing speaks louder to the need for medicine than saying that it's pointless.
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you will not be using internal medicine knowledge as a typical community psychiatrist, you will forget 90 percent of what you learned 5 years out because you don’t use that info
 
psychapp121 said:
I’m a psych resident..want to give examples of medicine knowledge you still use? Or do you just like to argue?
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If you're a psych resident, then you'd know that one of the requirements of residency is CL. How do you think you can get through CL when your IM knowledge is limited to a med school rotation? What are you going to do when your inpatient unit is med/psych and you get called at 2 am for high blood pressure or you are admitting a diabetic and need to order insulin or you get called when a nurse wants to hold insulin for low blood sugar? You can't just call a medicine consult for stupid things. You are expected to know how to handle these things. In terms of after residency, you will also need to keep IM knowledge in the back of your mind, even for doing things as simple as LFTs and lipids and monitoring drug levels or ruling out medical contributions. Anyone who thinks medicine knowledge is pointless as a psychiatrist is likely someone who is in very, very early training,
 
Mass Effect said:
What are you going to do when your inpatient unit is med/psych and you get called at 2 am for high blood pressure or you are admitting a diabetic and need to order insulin or you get called when a nurse wants to hold insulin for low blood sugar? You can't just call a medicine consult for stupid things. You are expected to know how to handle these things. In terms of after residency, you will also need to keep IM knowledge in the back of your mind, even for doing things as simple as LFTs and lipids and monitoring drug levels or ruling out medical contributions. Anyone who thinks medicine knowledge is pointless as a psychiatrist is likely someone who is in very, very early training,
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I've been an attending inpatient psychiatrist at a community hospital for a couple months now. We have our medicine consultants handle all of these things. No one is asking me what blood pressure medicine should be given to a patient at 2am for elevated blood pressure. If they're checking a blood pressure at 2am on a patient, chances are the patient is having some medical symptom that might constitute a medical emergency anyways, and they should be paging the hospitalist.

Even in the non-academic world, medicine will consult psych for all sorts of "stupid things" that they can handle. So it goes both ways.

I certainly wouldn't negate the value of good internal medicine training. I think it's most valuable in determining when to push back on other medical services when they want to say something is psychiatric but you know it's medical. Delirium would be the most obvious example.
 
Psych19 said:
I've been an attending inpatient psychiatrist at a community hospital for a couple months now. We have our medicine consultants handle all of these things. No one is asking me what blood pressure medicine should be given to a patient at 2am for elevated blood pressure.
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thanks for your insight
 
Mass Effect said:
If you're a psych resident, then you'd know that one of the requirements of residency is CL. How do you think you can get through CL when your IM knowledge is limited to a med school rotation? What are you going to do when your inpatient unit is med/psych and you get called at 2 am for high blood pressure or you are admitting a diabetic and need to order insulin or you get called when a nurse wants to hold insulin for low blood sugar? You can't just call a medicine consult for stupid things. You are expected to know how to handle these things. In terms of after residency, you will also need to keep IM knowledge in the back of your mind, even for doing things as simple as LFTs and lipids and monitoring drug levels or ruling out medical contributions. Anyone who thinks medicine knowledge is pointless as a psychiatrist is likely someone who is in very, very early training,
Click to expand...

it seems you’re the one unfamiliar with how community psychiatry operates if you think nurses are calling for elevated BP at 2am and asking the psychiatrist what to do..
 
Psych19 said:
I've been an attending inpatient psychiatrist at a community hospital for a couple months now. We have our medicine consultants handle all of these things. No one is asking me what blood pressure medicine should be given to a patient at 2am for elevated blood pressure. If they're checking a blood pressure at 2am on a patient, chances are the patient is having some medical symptom that might constitute a medical emergency anyways, and they should be paging the hospitalist.

Even in the non-academic world, medicine will consult psych for all sorts of "stupid things" that they can handle. So it goes both ways.

I certainly wouldn't negate the value of good internal medicine training. I think it's most valuable in determining when to push back on other medical services when they want to say something is psychiatric but you know it's medical. Delirium would be the most obvious example.
Click to expand...

I was primarily speaking about residency and med/psych units. As an attending, you can get whatever job you want, and that could mean you stay far away from med/psych units. But I maintain you still have to know relevant medicine if you want to prescribe responsibly. And delirium management involves CL psychiatry every place I've been.

psychapp121 said:
it seems you’re the one unfamiliar with how community psychiatry operates if you think nurses are calling for elevated BP at 2am and asking the psychiatrist what to do..
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Hey, you can think what you want. Your opinion will change as you advance through your studies.
 
Mass Effect said:
I was primarily speaking about residency and med/psych units. As an attending, you can get whatever job you want, and that could mean you stay far away from med/psych units. But I maintain you still have to know relevant medicine if you want to prescribe responsibly. And delirium management involves CL psychiatry every place I've been.



Hey, you can think what you want. Your opinion will change as you advance through your studies.
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no lol I’m currently on CL, you do not need 4 months of medicine to do this..you need CL to do this..managing COPD will not make you a better psychiatrist..although it’s better to have at least a month of medicine knowledge just so you have some idea of what’s going on but not the end of the world because you’ll forget it all anyway and have medicine consulted to actually do anything medically related on your patients
 
If your residency is allowing interns in December to do CL, then you're right, they probably don't care if you know medicine.
 
psychapp121 said:
interns don’t do CL..you do that usually pgy2 and possibly 4
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You said earlier in this thread that you are on CL. ("I’m currently on CL, you do not need 4 months of medicine to do this.. ").

Based on your previous posts, you're an intern. So if interns don't do CL, how are you on CL?
 
Mass Effect said:
You said earlier in this thread that you are on CL. ("I’m currently on CL, you do not need 4 months of medicine to do this.. ").

Based on your previous posts, you're an intern. So if interns don't do CL, how are you on CL?
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I’m not an intern and never said I was..
 
psychapp121 said:
I’m not an intern and never said I was..
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Look, I'm not going to go back and forth with you over and over about this. The only reason it's even relevant is because it appears you're claiming to know more than you actually do (such as knowing anything about CL) to make your points. Per your post history, you applied to residency in 2018 as an MS-4 and matched in 2019.

Say what you want. I just don't think you should claim you've had experiences you haven't. Over and out.
 
Alemo said:
Boy this has a lot to do with Maine Medical Center....
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Interns actually do a month of CL at MMC. Then a few more PGY2. It’s helpful because we cover the consult service when we are on call.

Also, there’s no annoying bickering over stupid **** at MMC.
 
Mass Effect said:
Look, I'm not going to go back and forth with you over and over about this. The only reason it's even relevant is because it appears you're claiming to know more than you actually do (such as knowing anything about CL) to make your points. Per your post history, you applied to residency in 2018 as an MS-4 and matched in 2019.

Say what you want. I just don't think you should claim you've had experiences you haven't. Over and out.
Click to expand...

wrong
 
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