psychthrowaway123
New Member
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2020
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- Reaction score
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Hey everyone, I’ve been a long time creeper... but made an account to post and get some insight w my rank list and interview process. I really liked Yale ans UW so far. I have Stanford coming up which will also be a big contender for me as I see it like a Yale of the west coast— I will update my thoughts then but for now hoping to get some input on UW vs Yale. For reference I am Asian American and single.
Yale
+humanities slant- i was a humanities minor in college and have always had an interest in more humanities >> bio sciences
+flexibility in the amount of time and autonomy you get in creating your own project
+Yale-China relationship, yale relationship w global health (see cons down below)
+better COL to salary ratio (i have a butt load of loans)
+small enough town i think i could walk around, bike, make friends easily but also still within distance from more "happening" places like NYC if i need more excitement
+my inner asian prestige ***** is like woaaaw, drinking up that brand name
+moonlighting starting PGY2 (yay pay down my loans!!)
+really liked the residents on social hour, albeit virtual zoom social hour... hard to tell... they seemed passionate and opinionated-i am super opinionated too and would thrive w that kind of UP energy.
+social justice slant-- but i do see how maybe it can get really special snowflake culture-y... this is not necessarily a bad thing to me haha i kind of like that.
-far from family... but my sister might be going to med school in NYC making me close to family, just far from parents. i have a better relationship w my sister anyways > parents
-unnngh snow... and humidity... i actually mind the snow less, dislike humidity more.
-is there sporty things?? biking, hiking, beach things? i've been told yes but just hard to visualize since i've never lived in northeast USA.
-less Asian American, AAPI community-- and this is a negative for both personal reasons (dating) as well as professional (i want to learn how to serve AAPI clinical population, minority mental health!--though could seek this kind of work via the global health stuff?)
-i have heard really mixed reviews about new haven being like eh?? (i have never been there)
-can't really find any info about yale offering on call meals, gym, bonus lil perks like that.... though i guess the COLA:salary ratio kinda addresses that anyways
-the fact that there is no resident clinic and you only get 1 placement in 3rd year whether you like it or not for your outpatient clinic.
-liked the PD but didn't get a good grasp of the rest of the faculty b/c they asked me a lot of questions, i didn't have as much time to get to know them
Verdict: could see myself happy here, appeals to my artsy fartsy side.seems much smaller though than UW...this isn’t bad necessarily... seems like this will give me depth> breadth
UW
+closer to family
+i grew up on the west coast... the evil you know vs. the evil you don't...
+better weather, i think i can handle overcast, because even if its overcast i can go outside and do sporty things
+sporty landscape for sporty me, landscape seems pretty similar to Northern California so i can visualize what i'd do for fun/relax
+seattle seems funner, more diverse than new haven (though again, new haven is close to nyc so could maybe still scratch that itch..)
+liked the faculty a lot, felt connected with them, i got a lot of time to ask them questions and learn about them more than in the yale interview.
+resident clinic, more diverse outpatient experience in pgy3
+huge UW and affiliated training sites, seems like id get a better clinical training by volume and site diversity here (but at the cost of potential burnout?)
+more oppty to serve AAPI, and date AAPI lol. since more AAPI presence here.
-GROSS off service schedule, sounds way more workhorse than yale call schedule, both off and on service -- significant concern for burnout
-no moonlighting until pgy3 or 4? and seems like people dont even take advantage of it anyways? prolly cuz ^^ busy w above
-seattle COLA: salary ratio sucks more
-seems like their advertised "pathways" is like high school clubs, come to attend the lunch talks if you can or whatever. i have a lot of diverse interests but due to the work schedule it seems like i wouldnt really truly have the time to pursue my interests
-biological/medicine slant > humanities, which to me is a negative based on my interests/personality
-i'm nervous about seattle freeze, i'm slow to make friends to begin with and would ideally like to have a diverse friend group that ISNT only people from medical backgrounds.
-did not have as positive perception towards residents. admittedly we had a kind of weird resident in our social hour, was a nontrad person so was hard to relate. other residents were okay, i think i'd get along fine with them, but didn't feel as "ooh!" as the yale residents.
-the weird resident vs. insitution problem.
Verdict: could see myself becoming an excellent clinician here but am concerned about burnout both from
Hours and from the more rigid structure and psychologically the loan situation?. Happy w the outdoorsy **** that appeals to my athletic side. This seems more like breadth> depth.
And I don’t know what matters ultimately for preparing to be a good attending re: breadth vs depth ?
thank you for any help and insight you can offer!
Yale
+humanities slant- i was a humanities minor in college and have always had an interest in more humanities >> bio sciences
+flexibility in the amount of time and autonomy you get in creating your own project
+Yale-China relationship, yale relationship w global health (see cons down below)
+better COL to salary ratio (i have a butt load of loans)
+small enough town i think i could walk around, bike, make friends easily but also still within distance from more "happening" places like NYC if i need more excitement
+my inner asian prestige ***** is like woaaaw, drinking up that brand name
+moonlighting starting PGY2 (yay pay down my loans!!)
+really liked the residents on social hour, albeit virtual zoom social hour... hard to tell... they seemed passionate and opinionated-i am super opinionated too and would thrive w that kind of UP energy.
+social justice slant-- but i do see how maybe it can get really special snowflake culture-y... this is not necessarily a bad thing to me haha i kind of like that.
-far from family... but my sister might be going to med school in NYC making me close to family, just far from parents. i have a better relationship w my sister anyways > parents
-unnngh snow... and humidity... i actually mind the snow less, dislike humidity more.
-is there sporty things?? biking, hiking, beach things? i've been told yes but just hard to visualize since i've never lived in northeast USA.
-less Asian American, AAPI community-- and this is a negative for both personal reasons (dating) as well as professional (i want to learn how to serve AAPI clinical population, minority mental health!--though could seek this kind of work via the global health stuff?)
-i have heard really mixed reviews about new haven being like eh?? (i have never been there)
-can't really find any info about yale offering on call meals, gym, bonus lil perks like that.... though i guess the COLA:salary ratio kinda addresses that anyways
-the fact that there is no resident clinic and you only get 1 placement in 3rd year whether you like it or not for your outpatient clinic.
-liked the PD but didn't get a good grasp of the rest of the faculty b/c they asked me a lot of questions, i didn't have as much time to get to know them
Verdict: could see myself happy here, appeals to my artsy fartsy side.seems much smaller though than UW...this isn’t bad necessarily... seems like this will give me depth> breadth
UW
+closer to family
+i grew up on the west coast... the evil you know vs. the evil you don't...
+better weather, i think i can handle overcast, because even if its overcast i can go outside and do sporty things
+sporty landscape for sporty me, landscape seems pretty similar to Northern California so i can visualize what i'd do for fun/relax
+seattle seems funner, more diverse than new haven (though again, new haven is close to nyc so could maybe still scratch that itch..)
+liked the faculty a lot, felt connected with them, i got a lot of time to ask them questions and learn about them more than in the yale interview.
+resident clinic, more diverse outpatient experience in pgy3
+huge UW and affiliated training sites, seems like id get a better clinical training by volume and site diversity here (but at the cost of potential burnout?)
+more oppty to serve AAPI, and date AAPI lol. since more AAPI presence here.
-GROSS off service schedule, sounds way more workhorse than yale call schedule, both off and on service -- significant concern for burnout
-no moonlighting until pgy3 or 4? and seems like people dont even take advantage of it anyways? prolly cuz ^^ busy w above
-seattle COLA: salary ratio sucks more
-seems like their advertised "pathways" is like high school clubs, come to attend the lunch talks if you can or whatever. i have a lot of diverse interests but due to the work schedule it seems like i wouldnt really truly have the time to pursue my interests
-biological/medicine slant > humanities, which to me is a negative based on my interests/personality
-i'm nervous about seattle freeze, i'm slow to make friends to begin with and would ideally like to have a diverse friend group that ISNT only people from medical backgrounds.
-did not have as positive perception towards residents. admittedly we had a kind of weird resident in our social hour, was a nontrad person so was hard to relate. other residents were okay, i think i'd get along fine with them, but didn't feel as "ooh!" as the yale residents.
-the weird resident vs. insitution problem.
Verdict: could see myself becoming an excellent clinician here but am concerned about burnout both from
Hours and from the more rigid structure and psychologically the loan situation?. Happy w the outdoorsy **** that appeals to my athletic side. This seems more like breadth> depth.
And I don’t know what matters ultimately for preparing to be a good attending re: breadth vs depth ?
thank you for any help and insight you can offer!
I feel like I'm watching a you tube video on Racoon versus Coyote; or Lion vs Crocodile
"We are biologic' = "We don't care about psychotherapy" Who isn't biologic? Give me a break. 
I just don't think that any place is as good as Yale for psych residency. The experiences I had are just not ones that my colleagues had in their residencies. I remember how as a PGY-1 I'd walk straight from the medicine floor to some gorgeous building on the Yale campus to attend the Psychiatry and Philosophy groups, where we'd get free food and talk about epistemology and the basic nature of a psychiatric diagnosis. I remember when my program director invited my mother to visit the faculty from South Africa to do a presentation because he was just the nicest person on earth. I remember writing a book chapter with Jim Leckman on the evolutionary basis of OCD after promising him that I would never apply for a grant and had zero chance of being a major researcher. In my second year I was interested in neuroscience so Phil Corlett taught me predictive coding in his office and the next year I was interest in therapy so I had 25 therapy patients and had 4 analysts as my therapy supervisors. I wanted to study social media as in intern so the medical director of YPH gave me $3000 to do so. Yale is an incomparable academic wonderland filled with insanely smart people who research everything from narrative approaches in social psychiatry research to the basic neuroscience of psychosis and they are all willing to work with you if you are willing to show up and ask. Everything I have achieved as an attending is the result of channeling some perspective that I learned at Yale. I continue to feel connected to a rich network of colleagues who remain constantly available for academic and clinical collaboration. I came to Yale naive and with limited experience, and left with 26 publications and a broader perspective. Go with your gut -you won't regret it.
