need career advice

[drlove4]

My dream is to become a psychiatrist, but my grades are not up to med school standards (around 3.2). I will be entering my junior year as an undergrad, I'm a psychology major but doing required classes for med school (math is a difficult area). Is psychiatry a realistic goal? should i consider caribbean schools? I mainly want to be a therapist in private practice, so should I aim for a PhD or Psyd?? Thanks!

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[sunlioness]

PhD and PsyD are almost equally competitive to get into as medical school is. I'm not going to tell you that becoming a physician or a psychologist is out of reach for you because I don't know that. But I will say that if your main goal is to be a therapist in private practice, then medical school is probably not something you want to do anyway. There are also less competitive ways to become a therapist than through becoming a psychologist . . . you could always look into MSW or LPC programs that would get you there with just a masters degree. Between those two paths, my personal feeling is that MSW --> LCSW is better because it's a more universally recognized and respected degree and one with which you can bill Medicare. LPCs can't do that.

Good luck!

 

[Doc Samson]

My dream is to become a psychiatrist, but my grades are not up to med school standards (around 3.2). I will be entering my junior year as an undergrad, I'm a psychology major but doing required classes for med school (math is a difficult area). Is psychiatry a realistic goal? should i consider caribbean schools? I mainly want to be a therapist in private practice, so should I aim for a PhD or Psyd?? Thanks!

If you want to be a physician, then go to medical school (lots of routes to the top of the mountain - wouldn't even rule out a US med school at this point). If you want to be a psychotherapist, there are quicker/less intense paths to follow.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

If you want to be a physician, then go to medical school. If you want to be a psychotherapist, there are quicker/less intense paths to follow.

Agreed.

If you primarily want to be a therapist, look into Social Work programs with an emphasis on therapy. Medical school requires you to train as a physician first, and a doctoral program in psychology requires you to train as a scientist first. As sunlioness mentioned above, the LCSW is a good option because it is more focused on providing clinical services.

 

[whopper]

Is psychiatry a realistic goal? should i consider caribbean schools?

Depends how much you want the M.D.

I would not consider going to a Carribean school unless it was one with a solid board-pass rate. Some foreign medschools have pass rates less than 50%. It's not worth it IMHO to put 2 years of your life, about $100K, only to not be able to pass the board exam. Further, the foreign medschool should have some solid connections with hospitals in the US to do rotations.

You could also pursue a D.O. they are not as competitive and M.D. schools. There is some stigma against D.O.s, though I have met several capable D.O.s and do not think the stigma is warranted.

If you like the behavioral sciences, be in for a shock when you go to medical school. Less than 10% of your curriculum focuses on mental health. It's more on the order of memorizing thousands of slides of various diseased cells vs. healthy cells, cutting up a corpse, and mastering biochemistry.

I know because I was a psychology major, and wanted to be a psychiatrist. I had to endure 3.8 years out of 4 years of a non-mental health curriculum, and well, IMHO medschool education is dehumanizing. You have to live in a state of extreme self-denial for 4 years. It was worth it, but you got to remember that this is a marathon. You're not going to get to your goal until way way way down the road, all the while doing things not very much related to mental health.

 

[fMRI]

My dream is to become a psychiatrist, but my grades are not up to med school standards (around 3.2). I will be entering my junior year as an undergrad, I'm a psychology major but doing required classes for med school (math is a difficult area). Is psychiatry a realistic goal? should i consider caribbean schools? I mainly want to be a therapist in private practice, so should I aim for a PhD or Psyd?? Thanks!

Try to get your GPA up, so you can always decide later.

If you require extra motivation: check out the admissions criteria and stats to psych PhD programs. If med school should be out of your reach, most psych PhDs will be, too.

Good luck!

 

[rgerwin]

As far as psych goes, I have never heard of a great deal of DO stigma. If you do alright on your MCAT and apply broadly, you should be fine. PLus, if you are a psych major, you could still do a post-bacc, which would help. The advice regarding therapy is correct. If your heart is set on that, don't bother with the doctoral degree of any kind. You can even become a psych nurse and give meds.

 

[peppy]

It sounds like your heart is more in the "art" of mental health than the "science" side of it, so I agree that pursuing something like social work might be a faster and more rewarding route to the kind of work you seem to want to do.
As a doc, I have the good fortune to work for a hospital that has pretty good social workers and they are priceless in helping patients truly get better. Hospitalizing patients and starting them on meds is really just the beginning of actually getting them better.