residency and competitiveness

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gestalt

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Hi all. I've been reading these posts, and I find them useful....
I finally thought of sending a question or 2 out there to see what y'all think.

I've been out of med school for about a year now...graduated from a good Austarlian med school but then could not match into rads. I was initially thinking of doing some more research in the field to reapply but recently I've gone back to my original idea of doing psychiatry. I just loved this rotation more than any other field but truthfully it was the overall impression of other people about the field that affected my opinion about psych as well.

Recently, I've been doing some soul searching and i feel like an idiot for not having gone for psych from the start.

The problem that I have now is that I don't have any LOR from US faculty. On the plus side of things, I am a Us citizen and have a step 1 score of 234.

Should I try to get to know some faculty by doing research or shadowing before applying for the match next year? or is this not that important. I've been doing some travelling in my time off.

I want to know what my chances are objectively for matching into a competitive program or one in a good location, ie CA?

Thnks. :idea:

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gestalt said:
Hi all. I've been reading these posts, and I find them useful....
I finally thought of sending a question or 2 out there to see what y'all think.

I've been out of med school for about a year now...graduated from a good Austarlian med school but then could not match into rads. I was initially thinking of doing some more research in the field to reapply but recently I've gone back to my original idea of doing psychiatry. I just loved this rotation more than any other field but truthfully it was the overall impression of other people about the field that affected my opinion about psych as well.

Recently, I've been doing some soul searching and i feel like an idiot for not having gone for psych from the start.

The problem that I have now is that I don't have any LOR from US faculty. On the plus side of things, I am a Us citizen and have a step 1 score of 234.

Should I try to get to know some faculty by doing research or shadowing before applying for the match next year? or is this not that important. I've been doing some travelling in my time off.

I want to know what my chances are objectively for matching into a competitive program or one in a good location, ie CA?

Thnks. :idea:

Hi gestalt,

It sounds like you have diverse interests in different fields at a very early stage in your career - I think that is an advantage and an asset, so don't beat yourself up about it. Also, it is great that you are a U.S. Citizen and have a very good Step score.

As far as one's specific chances, it is hard to gauge that for any one person. From my limited exposure, I've noticed that the most competitive programs and locations have taken few non-U.S. medical graduates in recent years. However, there are a lot of excellent programs out there which historically have taken many non-U.S. grads (around 35% of psych spots all around the country go to non-U.S. grads), and each application cycle is different.

Some data that might help you is the list of schools that the residency class came from in the past. You can search for the psychiatry training departments of some programs you are interested in and e-mail the program director. Then you could explain your situation and ask for a list of schools that their residents have come from in the past; asking for the list without the names attached may yield more success, as PD's need to protect the anonymity of their residents to some extent.

What would probably help your application most is to get a US LOR, especially from a big academic center where the attendings may be well-known in the field. I know you are out of medical school, but I'm sure there are still opportunities out there to do rotations or shadowing. Doing several rotations in different places would help you even more. Research in psychiatry would likely be helpful, so you can look into that, too, though I would give priority to the clinical experiences.

Best of luck.
 
Thanks for the help Willow212.

I was just talking to a psych resident who was bitterly complaining about the fact that all he does is change around meds for patients!

Do the majority of psych programs emphasize pharmacotherapy over psychotherapy,etc?

Just wondering if others out there share this sentiment? How does one go about finding out about programs where one can develop one's own approach instead of over-emphasizing the role of meds?

thanks.
 
gestalt said:
Thanks for the help Willow212.

I was just talking to a psych resident who was bitterly complaining about the fact that all he does is change around meds for patients!

Do the majority of psych programs emphasize pharmacotherapy over psychotherapy,etc?

Just wondering if others out there share this sentiment? How does one go about finding out about programs where one can develop one's own approach instead of over-emphasizing the role of meds?

thanks.

Hi gestalt,

I don't really know about the majority of programs out there since I have visited relatively few. Your best source would be the residents at different programs in the geographical region in which you are looking. As far as my observations go, I think that there is a lot of variation in psychiatry programs - so there are some that emphasize pharm and others that emphasize therapy. But all must meet certain requirements in each for the program to be certified, so I think things are moving towards more balance between the two modalities.
 
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