Student Seeking Advice

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consciousness

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Hello everyone. I am going to spill my guts in the hopes that I will feel better =) If you take the time to read this and share your thoughts I would greatly appreciate your point of view. So far, I have greatly benefited from reading these posts but have never posted myself.. so thanks again. I am a third year medical student and I have been having incredible difficulty finding my place in the medicial system. A part of me feels like i do not belong in medicine.. I am definitely not the kind of person who is going to jump ship for big pharm or anything like that.. (it's ironic that i did pick up an MBA along the way) ..but what i really enjoy in medicine are the more altruistic aspects, prevention and the softer side of connecting with patients. i probably should have been a therapist or something =) I guess I am one of those 'I'd rather be healer than treat a disease' kinda people and I am not a huge fan of using medication for everything especially lifestyle issues.

I was surprised to find that inpatient psych appealed to me because previously i felt like i would think that psych overly relied on meds.. but in the hospital, there is an acute situation that needs to be controlled or the person is sent on their way with the resources they need if they wish to follow up (in theory at least). and mental health treatment seems to make a lot more sense to me than giving someone a bunch of meds that they could avoid if they would eat differently and move around every so often. at this point.. what are your thoughts? am i making a lot of assumptions that may not be true? do other people feel this way? Now, i have the feeling that if I were going to enter the field, I would really want to be involved in academics in order to increase what I consider to be the good aspects of my job - even being an educator has a positive and appealing quality to it but it would be awesome to get involved with research or other side projects that an academic setting may facilitate, leadership roles really appeal to me as well. long term, i'm really in to a lot of body/mind stuff but i'm okay with keeping that on the back burner during residency.

I am at a school that is barely on the radar but the education is solid. My scores are not stellar - 222 on step 1, average class standing, i do really well on interviews and i am an easy person to work with, pretty passionate, i'm going to work on having good letters, i have been involved with some interesting and altruistic extracurriculars, and i have a pretty good entrepreneurial/creative side. now here come some specific questions in case anyone prefers that kind of thing, but feel free to write anything back even if you feel it's totally random.

would i be a decent candidate for academic psych programs? what would you recommend to be a better candidate? for some reason, i feel drawn to the west coast - i think it's because out there people seem more in to the 'softer side' of medicine and there's less hierarchy and more progressive attitudes towards medicine. would it be real challenging to do both - get in to an academic program on the west coast? i'll cut it off here because this is already becoming monstrous and loose =) thank you so much for reading this. i can't tell you how much i would appreciate some guidance right now.

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just a thought, PM&R is another field that could suit you as well - altruistic, connecting with patients, helping them restore their quality of life as opposed to strictly treating disease. Mind/body stuff seems like it could definitely have a place there as well. Nothing against psych which is also a great field, just something to consider.
 
From what I read, you have some of the aptitudes I'd look for in a psych resident. As far as the "academics", I'm not sure whether you mean getting into a top tier program to write grants and direct research (which is how the "academic programs" think of themselves), or more being an educator--which is done everywhere, but especially at programs where residents and med students train (which is just about everywhere...).

So I'd advise you to get a closer look at psych--take another rotation as an elective, or find a research project with someone if you're really interested in that kind of academics. I don't think that "being average" at a school with less than stellar cachet (meaningless!) is going to be anything against you when residency application time comes along.
 
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Good luck to you, sir! May I just make one friendly suggestion, which is irrelevant to career choice: please try to break your writing down into smaller paragraphs! It will make it easier for the reader!
 
thanks for the feedback!

It has been very helpful.

It's funny that you mention spacing out the text - i actually did space it out but when i submitted it, it was all condensed in to one paragraph.. then i tried to edit it a few times to add spaced - no avail. strange?
 
Did you do your psyche rotation yet? I read your post but didn't notice you mentioning you did one yet.

Best way to gauge is to do the psyche rotation & see for yourself.

treatment seems to make a lot more sense to me than giving someone a bunch of meds that they could avoid if they would eat differently and move around every so often. at this point.. what are your thoughts?

Agree. Medicine in general, with exceptions seems to follow a "treat the sick" model instead of "keeping well" model.

There are things which are a bit troubling in any field. Whether or not psychiatry clicks with you will have to determined ultimately by you.
 
thanks for adjusting the spacing T4C!

whopper, i did do my psych rotation and it was the first time during third year that i enjoyed getting up in the morning to make my way to the hospital.

but i must say, my attending was such an incredible guy and the whole team was really great. i really enjoyed watching my attending interact with patients - he would adjust his personality ever so slightly and sometimes outright challenge patients to get a feel for their response. it's hard for me to explain but i thought it was amazing how he used his personality as a medical tool.

it's hard for me to know how much of an effect working with a really cool team had on my perspective of psych overall.

OldPsychDoc, thanks for taking the time to write here. and i am glad to hear your feedback. you definitely bring a valuable perspective to the forum.
 
...whopper, i did do my psych rotation and it was the first time during third year that i enjoyed getting up in the morning to make my way to the hospital..
This is SUCH a KEY piece of data--and so many people ignore it when they are considering their future careers.

but i must say, my attending was such an incredible guy and the whole team was really great. i really enjoyed watching my attending interact with patients - he would adjust his personality ever so slightly and sometimes outright challenge patients to get a feel for their response. it's hard for me to explain but i thought it was amazing how he used his personality as a medical tool.
Had a very similar experience on my psych rotation with my attending back in the day. She was warm and empathetic with depressed patients; firm, limit-setting and in full control with the personality disorders--just amazed the heck out of me (still does, as my former attending is now my highly respected senior colleague :) ).
 
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