making a competitive application for child psychiatry

[childpsychhopeful_1]

I just matched at a small, relatively new community program in the southeast for psychiatry. I know its early for me, but I'm interested in child psychiatry and I want to know how I can start early in building a good application for fast track fellowship. I realize that my interests may change, and I may never pursue fellowship. But I want to make sure to take steps to create a strong application regardless in case I do decide to go for it.

Part of the reason I'm asking this early is that I feel like I messed up when I went about building a good application for general adult psychiatry. In retrospect, I didn't have a good strategy re application building, and followed some poor advice about where to apply. I also regret not seeking more advice on sdn. I matched really low on my rank list so I don't think my program prestige is going to get my foot in the door anywhere on the West Coast. I don't want to drop the ball again for fellowship applications and I want to do some damage control now. I also want some definable goals for intern year and PGY-2 to make me competitive.

About me: USMD, multiple psych poster presentations in med school, from California. Hoping to match into fast track child fellowship back in California or at least the Western US. I'd prefer to be in California and prestige of program does not matter to me. Let me know if any other information is relevant.

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[splik]

this is covered here essentially you want to be the best resident you can be to get strong letters of recommendation, and showing a strong commitment to your subspecialty, having some publications/presentations, and winning some awards are icing on the cake (though not necessary at all). you will want to get involved in AACAP early, apply for their resident awards, maybe the APA child psychiatry fellowship, connect with child psychiatrists at your program, get involved in projects etc, but these should not detract from your clinical responsibilities and performance which is the most important thing by far.

 

[TexasPhysician]

Child psychiatry fellowships are not very competitive. Just do your best in residency.

 

[childpsychhopeful_1]

Child psychiatry fellowships are not very competitive. Just do your best in residency.

Thanks for the reply TexasPhysician, but that advice is way to close to what the psych department advisor at my school told me when I was gearing up for ERAS. "Psych isn't derm". I think I heard that 3 times over the app cycle or permutations of it. But I'm suspicious of this type of laissez faire advice now since it didn't told true for me this application cycle. So, I'm trying to be more proactive about getting information this time.

There are always ways of being more competitive and with the limited positions in desirable CA areas, I can see how getting a spot is difficult. It could be the difference between matching in California and matching in New Mexico for two years.

 

[TexasPhysician]

Thanks for the reply TexasPhysician, but that advice is way to close to what the psych department advisor at my school told me when I was gearing up for ERAS. "Psych isn't derm". I think I heard that 3 times over the app cycle or permutations of it. But I'm suspicious of this type of laissez faire advice now since it didn't told true for me this application cycle. So, I'm trying to be more proactive about getting information this time.

There are always ways of being more competitive and with the limited positions in desirable CA areas

Someone else being wrong also doesn't mean that I am.

General psychiatry has plenty more applicants as spots and the top programs are very competitive.

Child psychiatry has more spots than applicants. The programs I have been associated with interview everyone that completes an application. The most desirable applicants almost always are internal as they are known fits which transition easy. The least competitive places could be impossible matches for you if 3 of their gen psych residents want the 3 child spots. The majority of child psych applicants have 0 interest in applying outside their home program. Your ability to match in CA could hinge on whether CA residents want to do child that year. If there aren't enough internal candidates:

After internal candidates, the most important factors are communication and fit. Communication skills are very important.

Residents liking you can be huge. This is so important that I've seen internal gen psych applicants be allowed to virtually select the 1 external candidate to fill the spot. Faculty perception of being able to transition well is important.

Demonstrating a desire for child psych is of minimal value as very few applicants complete the applications, interview, and pass on 200k job offers without being willing to do the 2 years. Even those that change their mind about practicing child psych typically stay the 2 years.

Everyone has good LOR's. Even awful applicants.

Doing the following will hurt you: not taking step 3, too many step failures to be licensed in the state, gen psych probation, and failing a gen psych rotation. All are solved by being a good gen psych resident.

When a child psych program has a low number of internal applicants, the lack of competitive applicants is so poor that the difference in gen psych and child psych incoming classes can be light/day. I've seen a gen psych program have match stats of avg 230+ step scores, all AMG's, publications, etc with the same quality child program taking FMG's with board failure and struggling to do a HPI in English as they don't fill otherwise. Not filling is a bigger problem than a poor fellow.

The funny thing is that even with more spots than applicants, child psych is one of the most competitive psych fellowships. I've seen addiction psychiatry programs go years without 1 applicant.

Doing your best in gen psych and having a well connected PD like you enough to help track down CA fellowships with fewer internal applicants would make you a strong applicant.

 

[childpsychhopeful_1]

Thanks for expanding on your point of view. Thats interesting; from your post it almost seems like internal resident interest lack of interest in fellowship and likability on interview day are the most important factors in getting into C&A fellowship. Apart from being a good gen psych resident that is.

It certainly sounds like a different animal then gen psych match.

 

[Blitz2006]

Well here are the 2017 match stats FYI:

http://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Results-and-Data-SMS-2017.pdf

Table 1: 352 spots (323 applied), 297 filled, 41 programs went unfilled....

 

[childpsychhopeful_1]

Interesting trends, thanks for the pdf. According to one of the graphs listed, it does seem like there are more spots then applicants for the last several years now.

2013: 62 unfilled positions, 31 unmatched applicants
2014: 63 unfilled positions, 28 unmatched applicants
2015: 48 unfilled positions, 31 unmatched applicants
2016: 48 unfilled positions, 18 unmatched applicants
2017: 66 unfilled positions, 21 unmatched applicants