Switching out of Psych Residency

[Psychyatryme]

Lets say after year one of residency I decided I missed Medicine or wanted to do FP or Neuro. How hard is it to switch into the 2nd year of one of these. Is it the kind of thing where you definitely are going to end up going down in terms of quality and location or not necessarily?

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[whopper]

You might want to specifically go into the IM forums and ask around. I don't know how competitive that field is, though I'd wager its probably highly variable because there are so many IM programs around of highly variable qualities.

 

[chameleonknight]

Pretty sure you'd have to start over. IM requires 3 yrs of continuity clinic IIRC.

 

[peppy]

Based on prior discussions on these forums, my impression is that your best chance would be to switch into FP.
On the other hand, my understanding is that Neurology has specific requirements for a certain amount of internal medicine rotations during your first year (more than the 4 months psych interns get) so that would probably pose a problem in trying to switch over to a PGY-2 Neuro spot as a psych intern.

 

[Kluver Bucy]

I know someone who recently switched into IM in the same university after six months in psych residency. It only set her back three months -- not counting years of future regret and psychoanalysis.

 

[surftheiop]

Lets say after year one of residency I decided I missed Medicine?

If someone had interest in psychiatry and then ended up missing internal medicine like mentioned in OP, how well would doing a C/L or psychosomatic fellowship (are those two the same?) allow you to bring back the internal medicine aspects while still being a psychiatrist?

Or does doing C/L not neccesarily mean you do more internal medicine, but that you just deal with moreso with specific psychiatric problems associated more directly with other illness?


Not to derail your thread (although it might even be relevent to you), but Im trying to figure out as much as i can what different specialties/subspecialties do before I get to med school so i wont all of a sudden second year realize i have like 3 months to decide what im going to do for the rest of my life while attempting to study for step I.

 

[BobA]

Lets say after year one of residency I decided I missed Medicine or wanted to do FP or Neuro. How hard is it to switch into the 2nd year of one of these. Is it the kind of thing where you definitely are going to end up going down in terms of quality and location or not necessarily?

Here's an alternative perspective. Start in Neuro and then if you don't like it, you could easily switch to psych. Your medicine intern year would count towards your PGY-1 year and you wouldn't have to repeat internship. However, since you wouldn't actually do much neuro until your second year, and you might wait and switch then, you probably wouldn't get much credit for that second year of neuro.

If you started in psych, and switched to either fp or neuro you'd definitely have to repeat internship.

In general it's a lot easier to switch into psych than out of psych.

 

[medicienne]

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[Kluver Bucy]

That one is a breeze. You won't lose a day. There are opportunities listed on the Psychiatry Clearinghouse at
http://archive.psych.org/career_corner/careers_psych/clearinghouse/CHsearch.cfm
You may also be able to apply for Psych PGY-2 on ERAS.

I am wondering about the reverse-- as in switching from FM/IM into Psychiatry. Would it mean repeating a PGY-1 and applying through ERAS if it's not in the same hospital?