I finally got a PM from someone wanting to post their review. To be fair, I will post mine first:
Yale Adult Residency - PGY1 experience review
1) Location: This was honestly not a concern of mine at the outset, although it is fair to say that many people have reservations about living in New Haven. I would say the pros of New Haven are the great number of excellent restaurants, the ease of getting to places on foot or using the Yale shuttle, the proximity to New York, and then personally for me the wonderful concerts that take place at the Yale School of Music. Disadvantages are that there are parts of the city that are unattractive and unsafe, and although one can avoid living in them, it is a little harder to never have to pass through them. In particular the VA is in a less appealing part of town.
2) Work-life balance: This was surprisingly good on medicine, and really good on psychiatry. I had more than 50% of my weekends off the entire year. I spent weekends in New York, Boston, New Hampshire, the Berkshires, Newport, etc, had a lot of time to socialize, and even during work hours never felt overly pressured or stressed. Looking forward, the abundance of moonlighting opportunities is really exciting, as they reimburse very well and fit very nicely into the call schedule. I can't think of any negative points regarding work-life balance.
3) Didactics: The advantage of the didactics in intern year was their quality - very dynamic, well presented and interactive. The disadvantage is that in intern year we only had psychiatry didactics for three months (during our on-service months, in other words). Next year we have didactics throughout, however, and I expect good things!
4) Off-service rotations: I really enjoyed these and felt I was made part of the team, which facilitated my learning effectively. The neurology rotation was also a great learning experience, although the department is pretty highly strung - not that I can say that affected me for the two months I was there.
5) On-service rotations: I had three months of inpatient at the West Haven VA, which served as a solid introduction to severe mental illness. I feel I learnt a considerable amount about psychopharmacology and biopsychosocial formulation during this rotation, and was also pleasantly surprised by the diversity of patients. I had exposure to, and was able to administer ECT under supervision, and also learnt how to do suboxone detoxes, which was something I hadn't anticipated. An obvious disadvantage was that I had very few female patients. Also, the physical environment at the VA is not exactly inspiring!
My other inpatient rotation was at Yale Psychiatric Hospital, where I spent a month on the adolescent unit. This was a very different experience to the VA, being a more rapid turnover setting, with an equal distribution of males and females. I felt that this was a great place to work, with really experienced faculty that were enthusiastic to teach, and a much nicer physical environment.
6) Research: This has been the greatest highlight of my PGY-1 year. I have become involved with a number of promising research projects in each of my areas of interest, which, although related are rather diverse, and I have been astounded by the sheer number of available supervisors. I'm working on things like the application of thematic analysis in neuro-imaging research, and the phenomenology of the treatment response to glutamatergic antidepressants. People seem genuinely interested in helping facilitate my own research goals, rather than fit me in to whatever projects they might have going.
7) Overall: Obviously, I am ridiculously happy at Yale, and consider myself lucky to have ended up where I did. I hope that this information is somewhat helpful to others, and am happy to answer any questions other people might have - I promise to do this in as unbiased a fashion as possible.
I have no doubt that other PGY-1's at other programs have had similarly wonderful experiences. I invite them to contribute to this thread also!
