Psychiatry Residency Apps and Commitment to the Field

[yanks26dmb]

I've been told time and again that psychiatry is a field which really places an emphasis on commitment to the field. I've also been told high board scores are given less weight by psychiatry programs.

Ive got good board scores, but zero psych EC's aside from being a member of APA. This was probably poor judgement on my part - I put all of my time/efforts into getting good grades and doing well on boards, but not much else. But, what's done is done.

I feel I can clearly state why I want to go into the field, why I like the patient population, etc. If they get to my personal statement I think my enthusiasm would be obvious, but do programs really read every single personal statement?

For anyone familiar with the interview granting process, will my lack of psych specific EC's really hurt me? I'm a third year, so realistically what can I do at this stage to better my chances of landing interviews?

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[yanks26dmb]

get involved with your school's psych interest group, reach out to your psych advisor and see if there's a research project/QI project you can get involved with, take some psych electives early on your 4th year. it's def not too late.

I should have mentioned, I was co-founder of the psych interest group at my school during my first year...so I do have that going for me. I go to a DO school, so not much research to come by. Will definitely be taking psych electives fourth year.

 

[Stagg737]

You're still okay. Do some electives, get involved with something, get STRONG letters from psych attendings/evals for your MSPE. I had a few interviewers say my letters and MSPE were impressive because of the comments from some of my attendings, and other than that I'm a pretty weak applicant stat-wise. Still got a decent number of interviews.

 

[splik]

If you have good board scores, this matters less. commitment to psychiatry is very important for applicants who did not do well on the boards or clerkships. this is because the field is sensitive to being seen (wrongly) as an easy match for people who couldn't get into anything else. as such, for these applicants it is very important to show that they are genuinely interested and have an aptitude for the field. if you are competitive for other fields then no one is going to make a big fuss about lack of evidence of commitment to the field (some people decide late). The main thing you should do is an early elective at an academic or academic affiliated program where you can get a letter of recommendation. I personally put zero weight on grades from DO schools or the letters of recommendation from random sites you rotate at. this depends a bit on the school... but good letters from places that are constantly evaluating allopathic medical students will help immensely.

otherwise you still have plenty of time to do mental health volunteering, write a letter to the editor of a journal, write an op-ed in the local paper, do near-peer teaching in psychiatry, or present a poster at a meeting etc.

 

[SourceOfDenial]

The most concerning thing is you apparently like both the Yankees and Dave Matthews. There was a validated tool published in JAMA about ten years ago that showed people who are part of both fan bases have significantly less empathy and ability to form meaningful relationships.

Apart from that, having no meaningful extracurriculars in psychiatry is fine. Who has time for this stuff anyway? And everyone knows that these clubs are useless and just a way to pad CVs. You were right to focus on tests, now just impress on interviews.

 

[OldPsychDoc]

I should have mentioned, I was co-founder of the psych interest group at my school during my first year...so I do have that going for me. I go to a DO school, so not much research to come by. Will definitely be taking psych electives fourth year.

This is plenty from a "show interest" perspective.

 

[yanks26dmb]

The most concerning thing is you apparently like both the Yankees and Dave Matthews. There was a validated tool published in JAMA about ten years ago that showed people who are part of both fan bases have significantly less empathy and ability to form meaningful relationships.

Apart from that, having no meaningful extracurriculars in psychiatry is fine. Who has time for this stuff anyway? And everyone knows that these clubs are useless and just a way to pad CVs. You were right to focus on tests, now just impress on interviews.

So I'm guessing crafting my personal statement around tripping billies would be inadvisable?