Question about requirements

[CrazyBish]

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I want to go into psychiatry but I want to know if students have to go through all of the other training as well. Like Ob/gyn, surgery, etc? I was a psych undergrad major so I want to make the switch and go to med school but I'm scared that I'm going to have to operate on someone. haha. I've looked this up but I can't find anything on it so I'd love to hear from people who know.

 

[deleted77919]

I want to go into psychiatry but I want to know if students have to go through all of the other training as well.

Um, yes as a med student you have to go through a core set of rotations as well as elective rotations during your 3rd and 4th year (clinical years). Surgery is not one you will get to opt out of. However, as a rotating student you will not be "doing surgery." You will be doing a lot of post-op care and perhaps scrubbing in to some surgeries where you will have the glorious task of endlessly holding traction while getting pimped by the surgeon. There's no way to short cut this stuff.

 

[CrazyBish]

Ok that's why I asked. Maybe this won't be for me because I can't stomach much with operations. I want to study mental illnesses and help people with them. What do you mean by "holding traction"?

Are these rotations in your 3rd and 4th year of med school? What about when you do your residency? Are you then focused solely on psychiatry?

 

[deleted77919]

What do you mean by "holding traction"?

Are these rotations in your 3rd and 4th year of med school? What about when you do your residency? Are you then focused solely on psychiatry?

You do rotations during your 3rd and 4th year of medical school. Spend a month (or three) doing internal medicine, a month on surgery, etc.

"Holding traction" means you are holding a large piece of metal to pull some structure, muscle, etc out of the way while the surgeon works. You might have to do this for hours. Yeah, it gets old. But no, they won't say "Why don't you try the apendectomy today, you look ready, piece of cake." It'll be more like "Hold this thing for hours, and while we're doing this small bowel resection why don't you recite all of the branches of the superior and inferior mesenteric artery for me." But most of the time you'll run around asking post op pts about when their last bowel movement and doing wound checks.

Once you start a psych residency you will have some off service rotations (for instance, you'll have several months of internal medicine). But it's mostly psychiatry.

It is a long (and many times painful) process.

 

[diosa428]

Ok that's why I asked. Maybe this won't be for me because I can't stomach much with operations. I want to study mental illnesses and help people with them. What do you mean by "holding traction"?

Are these rotations in your 3rd and 4th year of med school? What about when you do your residency? Are you then focused solely on psychiatry?

3rd year of medical school usually requires rotations in Family Medicine, Psych, Internal Med, Surgery, Ob/gyn and Peds. These rotations are usually 4-12 weeks long, depending upon your school. Internal med and surg are usually the longer rotations. 4th year you will be required to do a Sub-Internship, usually in the specialty of your choice, but since Sub-Is are not offered in every specialty, you might have to do one in Internal Med or Surg. You're also generally required to do a rotation in a critical care area (ICU, CCU, MICU, SICU, EM, etc). Some schools require Neurology.

Remember, the first 2 years are not totally benign if you're grossed out easily. You will have to take anatomy and dissect a cadaver. You will also likely have to look at lots of organs in pathology. Our school requires us to attend at least one autopsy during path as well. However, I think after the initial shock, students tend to adapt fairly quickly, or have no problems with it in the first place.

I guess the question you should ask yourself is what your goals are. If you want to work with and treat the mentally ill medically (as in, with medications), you will need an MD or DO. However, a PsychD or PhD in Clinical Psychology is an option if you are more interested in the different types of therapy. I would suggest you further research the differences between the two and decide which is best for you. I honestly don't know much about what you can and can't do with the other degrees. I would say that if you really want to be a Psychiatrist, and not a Psychologist, 12 weeks of surgery is a small price to pay. You'll get through it. There are plenty of students who are in medical school who do not want to do surgery. However, if you would be just as happy as a Psychologist, and think you would like that training more, that may be a better route. Good luck.

 

[billypilgrim37]

If your first thought is "I want to be a psychiatrist" before your thought is "I want to be a doctor," then you should probably stay far far away from medical school and psychiatry.

If you're deciding between being a psychiatrist or an internist, then psychiatry might be a good fit for you. If you're deciding between being a psychiatrist or a psychologist, medical school will probably be a miserable way to spend four years of your life. And you only live once, which most of us tend to forget or downplay.

 

[whopper]

CrazyBish: I too was a psyche undergrad and that made me want to go into mental health services.

However I'm going to echo what was said above

I HATED MEDICAL SCHOOL!

It was one of the worst experiences of my life. I even later found out that my Myers-Briggs Personality type has one of the worst compatibilities with medical school. Its very different than the psychology curriculum. You're also at somewhat of a disadvantage because you're often being graded on a curve against your medschool classmates who often times were bio majors who took several of the medschool classes in undergrad (biochem, histology, microbiology etc).

(You could be of course an exception for psychology students--who sometimes get a BS and have a strong biological foundation in their training, but this is rare).

However I do stress that if you go into the profession, you do need to go through the rotations such as surgery & Ob-Gyn, and they will have applications & correlations with psychiatry, especially if you become a consult or inpatient psychiatrist.

As a psychaitrist, you still have responsibility over the physical care of your patients. Several psychiatric meds will cause physical side effects.

Consider what you want to do. I'm still glad I went through it, but it was tough and I had a lot of hardships.

 

[Encephalopathy]

I went to med school just for psychiatry and I was apprehensive about cadavers, ob/gyn, and surgery, too. As a 3rd year student, you're not expected to do much more than show up and pretend to be interested, so the rotations are tolerable...but I did wake up hating my life on many days. 4th year you can choose most of your rotations so you can load up on psych, neurology, radiology, and pathology instead of the "messier" specialties. I would advise that if you really want to be a psychiatrist and aren't completely squeamish, it's definitely doable. But if you'd be equally happy doing something else, do that. Keep in mind that med school basically sucks for everyone, not just future psychiatrists.

 

[jane70]

i was a social worker before i went to med school which is another area you could consider. with an MSW there's actually a fair amount you can do.

i thought i was a really squeamish person before med school but you'd be surprised how much you can get used to things and be comfortable. in other words don't write off medicine just b/c you think you might not be able to handle surg rotation in 3rd year or cadaver dissection in 1st year. however you really have to think about how much you like science. did you like chemistry, biology? can you study for hours and hours? can you stay patient when your end goal seems very far away? you could contact the medical school in your area and see about shadowing/meeting some med students, also the grad school to talk to psychology doctorate students or social work students/faculty.

good luck!

 

[Chimed]

i thought i was a really squeamish person before med school but you'd be surprised how much you can get used to things and be comfortable. in other words don't write off medicine just b/c you think you might not be able to handle surg rotation in 3rd year or cadaver dissection in 1st year. however you really have to think about how much you like science. did you like chemistry, biology? can you study for hours and hours? can you stay patient when your end goal seems very far away? you could contact the medical school in your area and see about shadowing/meeting some med students, also the grad school to talk to psychology doctorate students or social work students/faculty.

I totally agree with jane70. I wouldn't worry too much about anatomy and surgery. I remember a few students at my med school who where very squemish in anatomy and didn't have to discect. There are always gunners ready to step up and show how great they are! 🙄. Also, I think you'd be fine in surgery....I really wouldn't let that hold you back. I think the key is what jane70 said about how much you like general science. Do you like physiology? Do you like to study? Those are vital.

Also, not everyone "hates" medical school. I'd be lying if I said it was all fun and games and weren't times when I wanted to gorge my eyes out with a sharp #2 at times. However, overall, I actually enjoyed the experience and am glad I took this route. Many of my other classmates felt the same way. Probably a key to that is to find a good medical school with a supportive environment.

One thing that I think helped me was that, even though I knew I'd probably end up in psych before medical school, I also found other areas of medicine to be interesting. I tried to approach each subject with a "hey, maybe I might like this" attitude. I think that really helped me get through the long days of studying.

Best of luck.

BTW, delivering babies was one of the strangest experiences I've had...But the stories you get to tell others are worth it! I'll never forget holding a slippery, bloody, slimmy alien-like creature in my hands and staring down at this thing thinking "Holy crap, that is the ugliest thing I've ever seen in my life", while a stressed out resident is screaming "Don't drop it, don't drop it!" Ahh, the good ol' days.

 

[CrazyBish]

Thanks for all the responses. I'm a little squeamish but I think that with exposure I'd get used to it and be able to deal with it. I just don't ever want to be responsible for performing a surgery on someone. I want to do psychiatry over psychology because I feel like with medical training I'd be better suited to help my patients. I also want to be involved in research for mental illnesses and cures and whatnot. I don't even think I'd be all that miserable in med school but I think the residency would be killer for me. I really enjoy school and although there will be bio and chem and all of those classes, I'm pretty sure I can deal with them.

The responses here have helped a bunch and my next step is to get in touch with some psychiatrists and shadow them or ask to talk to them.

Whopper: How did you find your residency? Was it just the four years of med school that you hated? And you're happy with your career choice now?

LOL. I got a mental image of the alien looking baby.

 

[Chrismander]

CrazyBish: I too was a psyche undergrad and that made me want to go into mental health services.

However I'm going to echo what was said above

I HATED MEDICAL SCHOOL!

It was one of the worst experiences of my life. I even later found out that my Myers-Briggs Personality type has one of the worst compatibilities with medical school. Its very different than the psychology curriculum. You're also at somewhat of a disadvantage because you're often being graded on a curve against your medschool classmates who often times were bio majors who took several of the medschool classes in undergrad (biochem, histology, microbiology etc).

(You could be of course an exception for psychology students--who sometimes get a BS and have a strong biological foundation in their training, but this is rare).

However I do stress that if you go into the profession, you do need to go through the rotations such as surgery & Ob-Gyn, and they will have applications & correlations with psychiatry, especially if you become a consult or inpatient psychiatrist.

As a psychaitrist, you still have responsibility over the physical care of your patients. Several psychiatric meds will cause physical side effects.

Consider what you want to do. I'm still glad I went through it, but it was tough and I had a lot of hardships.

Whopper, tell us more about the Meyers Brigg and med school--a fascinating topic i haven't heard anyone bring up before.

 

[whopper]

Timothy Brigham, Ph.D. is an educational coordinator at Jefferson Medschool and he mentioned this to me.

My Meyers Briggs type is ENTJ. I'm of a type that likes to act on what I know and see results. I guess perhaps a team leader/manager type. In medschool, he mentioned that its a time where you are increasing your knowledge but not seeing the results of your labors, and you will not for years. I feel the 1st 2 years were more for guru types. Well I felt he nailed it. It was only after several years in psychiatry where I did see the benefits of everything I went through in medschool, even the stuff I thought at the time was not psychiatry such as histology slides (still has little correlation, but is needed for pathology--the first real class where you learn about diseases--and that will help you in psychiatry).

I am VERY HAPPY with my career choice--but it was hell getting here. I guess it did make the victory sweeter. I went through 2 failed relationships that could've ended up in marriage; One of which I still feel bad over (long story). I eventually married and my wife before we married broke up with me several times, not understanding the work I had to put into the degree. Studying while I knew she was dating another guy was very difficult. My wife too in hindsight actually feels very guilty over it but at the time, being in her early 20s, its tough for anyone to be tied to someone who had little time for anything but work. I don't blame her.

Medical school for me 1st year was absolute hell. The worst time of my life. By 2nd year, when we got to pathology, I started to feel like a doctor because in pathology you actually learn about real disease and treatments. This made the intense studying more bearable. I also hated the "curve" method of grading where your grade was highly dependent on the performance of the class. It really encouraged some cut-throat attitudes by people who are supposed to be future healers.

3rd & 4th year I was actually feeling semi-human again. Some of the rotations allowed you to work "normal" hours.

Residency-1st year was tough, but I didn't mind it because by then I was actually doing what I wanted to be doing.

I chose my residency because I loved the place as a medstudent. I rotated through the place I'm at now as a medstudent.

If you really want to do psychiatry--GO FOR IT!. Word of advice though--make sure you get a good foundation in the biological sciences, and try to get used to being a good multiple choice test taker. The 3 board exams are for the most part multiple choice exams. I have seen several medstudents have little biological background and still do very well.

 

[CrazyBish]

I have to say that you're post is a bit inspiring to me. I was thinking about how I should just look for a psychology program because it would be easier but it sounds like your struggles paid off. What you are saying is exactly why I'm so hesitant about this career choice (besides the surgical aspect that I mentioned in my previous posts) because I like to see results right away and knowing that I won't see results for about 10 years makes me sick!

 

[strangeglove]

I like to see results right away

Hmmm. Maybe you are more cut out to be a surgeon than a psychiatrist, after all😀