Pediatric Consultation/Liaison?

[motuza]

Hi all,

I am a third year med student and I’ve decided on psychiatry as a career. I especially loved child & adolescent psych during my psychiatry rotation (although oddly enough I disliked my peds clerkship). I plan on doing a 3 + 2 adult/child residency.

I also enjoyed consultation/liaison psychiatry and would like to incorporate that into my career. I am wondering whether there is an option to do both C/L and C/A without 6 years of training. I have heard conflicting results on whether a C/L fellowship is useful or even necessary to practice C/L outside of a career in academic medicine.

Is this something that would be feasible to do, both in training and future practice? Any insight is greatly appreciated.

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[splik]

there are some people who do both fellowships but most just do child fellowship. you could choose a place that has more of an emphasis on C/L and working with the medically ill. if it not necessary to have a c/l fellowship to work with adults, then it is absolutely not necessary to have one to work with kids. btw you will have to do a peds C/L rotation as part of your child fellowship.

 

[TexasPhysician]

I’ve never met someone with both of those fellowships. I would wager that my 3 year old can count higher than the # of C&L/C&A dual boarded/trained specialists in the country.

It won’t be hard to find child C&L work with just a C&A fellowship.

 

[MacDonaldTriad]

I can name a handful of academic child C&L directors and none of them did a C&L fellowship. Of course it would help, but splik is right, psychosomatic fellowships work with adults. You would be better off in a C&L heavy CA training for this.

 

[Amygdarya]

One of the ways of getting into child C-L is triple boarding (Psych/Peds/CAP).

 

[motuza]

Thank you all for your advice! Seems like the best course would be to do CA at an institution with a C/L heavy curriculum. I know there will also be elective time during residency where I could do more C/L. I’ll be happy regardless of how I practice at the end of the day but it’s good to know I don’t necessarily have to make sacrifices.