i'm currently a cambridge intern. i've answered select questions below:
- a focus on teaching: we have all day didactics every wednesday starting at the end of the intern year. residents are excused from clinical responsiblities during this time. there's also a special focus on "resident as teacher" which is a series of didactics/seminars based on teaching residents how to teach.
- flexible electives: we have 6 weeks of electives during our intern year, where we can do just about anything we want. i'm doing a forensic psych elective with some selected readings and some inpatient consults and hopefully some field trips for two of the weeks. for the other 4, i'm doing an abc news medical journalism internship where i'll help write pieces for the abc news website and possibly for some of their television programming. some residents do international electives, others pursue a wide range of topics. our 4th year is almost entirely elective time with a lot of program support in terms of getting various fellowships/sponsorships.
- perhaps with early/good exposure to psychotherapy: very therapy-based program. i'd see the easiest place to read about this is on the program's website which you can find through freida or google.
-to summarize a few of your points: chill program, not unreasonable work hours, good quality of life, good fellow residents: that's certainly one of the primary appeals of cambridge. there's a great education:service ratio. in fact, our program, i would say, seeks out ways to minimize scut and other unnecessary work. there's keen attention paid to making sure we're not overworked, even as interns. some of my medicine months have been tough, but, in all honesty, they're extremely tame compared to anybody else i know. they even have specific events for us designed to foster our relationships. we had "intern gathering day" a few tuesdays ago where literally all of the interns in the entire hospital (psych, medicine, transitionals) were excused from all clinical duties (including floors and icu!) so we could basically have a fun day hanging out (we went apple picking and on a wine tour). i've had time to maintain a social life outside of residency (i play way too much xbox live), my wife has been pleasantly surprised at how much we've been able to see each other, and i can still go to the gym 4 days/week even on my toughest rotation.
honestly, i feel like i just scratched the surface with my answers, but hopefully they'll give you a flavor of what our program is like. feel free to pm me with any specific questions.
good luck!
i know it's hard to categorize residency programs all together but i was wondering which programs tend to produce strong psychiatrists (leaders in the field) but also have a reasonably chill work environment?
perhaps this does not exist =)
a program with:
- good camaraderie
- reasonable expectations on residents
- decent social life outside of hospital
- the possibility to get involved with research/leadership roles
which programs would not fit this classification?
thanks in advance!
