surgery to psychiatry

[istillbelieve]

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I wonder why there are so many people from general surgery switching to psychiatry. Is psychiatry the easiest program to get into after leaving another residency. I don't think it is. Any thoughts?

 

[Shikima]

No reason to start work at zero dark 30?
Only a guess.....

 

[MacDonaldTriad]

I don’t know that there are a particularly large number of surgeons changing to psychiatry. It may just be a sampling thing on this blog. If surgery converts are over represented, I suspect that it is the nature of surgery to be a discipline students feel obligated to enter into. “Of course my son would never go into psychiatry; he is going to be a surgeon.” Then the internship starts, the pressure seems relatively insignificant compared to the suffering and bingo, another psychiatric epiphany. How dare we be so selfish as to go into a field that we like? I once interviewed an applicant that compared his decision to go into psychiatry with his coming out of the closet. Let’s hope the future makes neither of these difficult.

 

[notdeadyet]

I don’t know that there are a particularly large number of surgeons changing to psychiatry. It may just be a sampling thing on this blog. If surgery converts are over represented, I suspect that it is the nature of surgery to be a discipline students feel obligated to enter into. “Of course my son would never go into psychiatry; he is going to be a surgeon.” Then the internship starts, the pressure seems relatively insignificant compared to the suffering and bingo, another psychiatric epiphany.

Good description. I think surgery-->psychiatry seems more common just because it's more noticed when it happens. Folks raise less of an eyebrow when it's medicine-->psychiatry, which I think actually occurs much more frequently.

 

[istillbelieve]

I've met a psychiatrist during clerkship that left general surgery because he didn't get into plastic surgery. He did three and a half years of g. surgery and didn't get in. I know plastic surgery is ultra competitive. So, his next interest was psychiatry.

Maybe it is this board that seems to have a lot of residents transferring from surgery to psychiatry.

 

[istillbelieve]

I've met a psychiatrist during clerkship that transferred from surgery to psychiatry because he didn't get into a plastic surgery program, after doing 3 and a half years of g. surgery. I think what attracted him to psychiatry was the chance to do ECT, TMS, and pharmacogenomics (new cutting edge stuff).

I guess it is this board that seems to be a lot of people wanting to transfer.