Some questions about psychiatry from an M3

[okokok]

Hello,

I recently completed a month on a C/L psychiatry service and really enjoyed it. The experience has made me seriously consider going into psychiatry. I hoped I could ask a few questions from those of you in the field.

- I have a sense that C/L jobs are difficult to find, or that they are desirable and thus pay less - is either of these true?
- I wasn't great at neurology/neuroscience in med school. I found the big picture of it super interesting, but I had trouble localizing lesions based on vignettes and that kind of thing. Does this have any bearing on my ability to do well in residency? How much neurology knowledge is necessary for the field?
- I'm also interested in the idea of working in a psychiatric medical unit, for people who need inpatient psych hospitalization but have concomitant medical problems. Do these places employ regular psychiatrists or people who went to a combined psych/IM program? I would assume that there wouldn't be enough people if they only hired psych/IM graduates, but I don't really know anything about it.
- Everyone has noticed psych has become more competitive in the last couple of years--
1. Any idea what the Step 1 scores are like for people being accepted to "top programs" these days?
2. Any sense that we're in a "bubble" and jobs/salaries will diminish in the next couple of decades? With telepsych, NPs, and PAs, I wonder if actual psychiatrists will be less needed? I'm sure a similar question has been asked before, so sorry to be repetitive.

Thanks!

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[MacDonaldTriad]

CL jobs are not hard to find and they pay fine, but generally the hospitals have to take a loss for your services. They need you so they do pay.
Neurology is good to know and you need at least enough of it to pass boards, but as a psychiatrist, you will not be picking up the medicine or neuro on a med/psych unit. Your are right dual boarded med/psych docs are fairly rare.
Step I ave 2014 = 214, 2015 = 218, 2016 = 220
Step II ave 2014 = 227, 2015 = 230, 2016 = 234.
No signs of bubble, things do go up and down and they are now up, but nothing points to a crash.
Psych is a little more competitive, but it is still one of the least competitive specialties.

 

[Stagg737]

Adding onto the original question, what's the difference between a C/L psychiatrist and someone who just does a general psych residency and is paid by a hospital to be a consult? What are the limitations of being exclusively a C/L psych? I'd imagine a hospital would have to be relatively large to justify paying someone enough where they could realistically make decent money off of it (going off of a rotation I did where we did consults along with inpatient and only saw 3-4 consults/day), or is this not really an issue.

Also, I realize that pay varies a lot and that there are many factors that go into it, but what would a "typical" C/L psych salary look like compared to say someone who works exclusively in the psych ward? Just curious because I've never met or heard about anyone that exclusively does consults and I also enjoyed that aspect of my psych rotations.