1) I was offered an externship that would involve doing therapy in an outpatient clinic, with CBT supervision-- basically the same experience that I get in my in-house clinic, but at a different place. Is that something that internships look for? Or is it more important to get experience with different types of populations? I could do the externship, but it would be inconvenient for me to fit it into my schedule and to drive 45 minutes to it.
I agree with what Therapist4Change said - it's probably more important to have an externship opportunity that is going to provide you with exposure to a new skill or population. If you're just doing the same thing in a different place, I'm not sure how much more diversity you will have in your application.
2) Do you think that you could have accomplished the same stuff by taking 4 years in grad school and then doing an extra year of post-doc after internship? You say that by finishing your dissertation before leaving, you were able to collaborate with your internship mentor and produce more publications than you would have otherwise. If you had left one year earlier, finished writing your diss on internship (let's pretend you were able to collect all your data before you left), and then taken an extra post-doc year to write more manuscripts to make up for the ones you didn't have time to write while on internship, would you have come out in the same place at the same time? Does what I'm saying make sense? I see 3 main advantages to this scenario: a) you get to move somewhere new for internship/ post-doc (important to me because I hate where I live now); b) you get paid more on post-doc than you do in grad student; and c) you get the satisfaction of being done and having your doctorate one year soon.
Quite honestly, I know very few people who have landed a faculty position directly out of internship. Even at my site, which is extremely competitive (and most likely on your list), only a few interns went directly into faculty jobs - and those were at less competitive institutions (i.e., regional universities or colleges). Regardless of how long it takes you in grad school, I would anticipate a postdoc as the norm. You have to remember that, as an intern, you will be competing against postdocs for these jobs (in addition to other Assistant Profs who are looking to make lateral moves) - and just by virtue of time, they will most likely have a more extensive vita, possibly with extramural funding.
So if you have a good handle on your dissertation, and feel like you could get it done in time, maybe going in 4 years wouldn't be so bad? But again, there's nothing worse that working a full-time clinical job and having to write your dissertation on evenings and weekends. Even at the most "research-oriented" sites you only have a few (e.g., 4) hours a week of protected research time. The rest of the time, you're providing patient care or attending didactics.
I know it is tempting to go "early," because we all get a bit sick of being in grad school and just want to get on with our lives. Likewise, I know it's tempting to think that a postdoc may not be necessary. But sometimes being patient has huge rewards. Ellen Frank puts it quite nicely in this brief interview:
http://www.cdibipolar.org/interviewView.php?id=106&video=1&audio=1
(and no, I'm not at Western Psych!)
By doing a full research postdoc, I was in a position to publish A LOT and submit an NIH grant that funded my transition to faculty at a prestigious academic medical school (in a time when funding has been cut dramatically). If I had gone out on my own right out of internship, I would not have had the resources, mentorship, or the time to establish my program of research the way a postdoc has allowed me to.
And by the way, T4C, I'm a woman.
🙂
