residency confusion

[same21]

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[atsai3]

Hi Im a pre med student interested in psychiatry, I just have some questions about residency. If I want to do psych, I have to be matched into a psych residency right out of med school? I believe psych has a year of internal medicine, can I do interal medicine match and then do psych? What about family medicine doctors who specialize in psychiatry? Are they the same as psychiatrists? Do they match into family medicine and then transfer to psych or also match into psych?

Psych is an integrated four-year residency that you match into directly out of medical school. During your first year, you (generally) do about 6 months of internal medicine, some neuro, and some psych.

You can do the internal medicine match, and either (a) complete your intern year of internal medicine residency, and then transfer to a psychiatry residency program, but you should be aware that you will be transferring out of the internal medicine program (i.e., the intern year is not self-contained) and your program director will need to find a replacement; or (b) complete your entire 3-year internal medicine residency and then start a psychiatry residency. In either case, you would likely get credit for your internal medicine and neurology months, possibly more, so that you would only need to complete 3 years (plus a few months) of psychiatry residency.

Many family practitioners do psych. They also do ob/gyn, surgery, etc etc.

You can do the family medicine match, and then do (a) or (b) as above. If (a), then the same caveat applies: you would be transferring out of your family medicine program (i.e., the intern year is not self contained) and your program director will need to find a replacement.

There are also some combined IM/psych and FM/psych programs. There have been several threads on those, and you can search the archives for more information.

 

[IAmAUser]

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