The Usual Showdown

[4EverBluDevils]

Psychology vs. Psychiatry.

I want to be either a counseling psychologist or a psychiatrist. I decided not to be a clinical psychologist because it's just as competitive and hard as the road to psychiatry for less pay. I decided against Social Work because it's less therapy, more paperwork, less pay. I would really appreciate your opinions on this.

Counseling Psychologist
PROS- Program more interesting, focuses more on therapy
-Road probably much cheaper

CONS- Hard to get hired, most employers looking for Clinical psychologists
-Not that well paid I don't think ($60K?)
-Mostly work with less serious disorders (depression/anxiety) and while I would enjoy that I would also want to help people with things like schizophrenia, OCD, suicidal thoughts
-The road to PhD is long, 3? years masters, 4? years for a separate PhD
-Not an exact science, would not feeling like I was becoming smarter, learning an actual craft or trade, don't take the material as seriously

Psychiatrist
PROS- Have power to prescribe which makes a hugh impact on a person's life
-I get the feeling finding good therapy is more a hit or miss situation than finding the right medicine
-Can be trained in psychotherapy anyway, so essentially get to do both jobs
-Money talks, I'm not even gonna act like some saint
-Road is shorter, 5 years until payday rather than 7ish

CONS
-Heavy postbacc and med school debt
-Poor quality of life in residency
-I'm not that good at science and find science material hard and mildly interesting, nervous about potential academic performance, have to slog through years of that before getting to the good stuff

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[PsychMD2100]

Based on my username and previous posts, you can probably tell how I'll answer this one.

Get the MD. It's a tougher road but it has far greater rewards.

The reality in real-world practice is that many psychologists will work under a medical director (psychiatrist) who not only prescribes the medicine but often serves as the nexus with the rest of the medical system. As you can appreciate, people with serious mental illness will often have comorbid medical conditions.

Having sat and voted as a member of my medical school's admissions committee, I can tell you that it is far more difficult to get accepted to medical school and complete residency than it is to enter into any Psychology PhD program. In any given year, there are roughly 45,000 applicants competing for 17,000 allopathic medical school positions. Most people are expected to have a 3.5 GPA (after some brutal basic science courses) and a 30 on their MCAT to be competitive. We would sometimes turn down people with an Ivy League 3.7/33/research experience just because an interviewer didn't like them--it's that competitive.

Although it's daunting, don't let it deter you. I always tell folks that you'll be doing this type of works for many, many years. It'd be a shame to be limited in your scope of practice. I would never want to be in a situation where I began working with a patient only to have to hand him/her off to a "higher level" provider.

If you take a step back and look at the reasons you listed as cons for the MD, they all seem to be based on fear of the unknown, ie costs, science difficulty, tough life during residency. Although they're obstacles, you shouldn't choose your career based on fear. Choose in your own mind what you would like to do, and then run with it.

Do psychiatry. You won't regret it.

 

[maranatha]

-Can be trained in psychotherapy anyway, so essentially get to do both jobs

For myself, this was one of the biggest arguments for doing psychiatry instead of clinical psychology. It is true that the psychotherapy training in a PhD program will be far more intense and in depth, not to mention the research training. However, you can go to a residency program that offers excellent psychotherapy training. And if not, there are always ways to continue therapy training and get more in depth supervsion after residency. Besides, there are many who would argue that the quality of the therapist is not directly correlated to the amount of training or the degree. This may or may not be true, but if you're serious about doing therapy there are always ways to pick it up. (Of note, many important contributors to psychotherapy were/are MDs.)

CONS
-Heavy postbacc and med school debt
-Poor quality of life in residency
-I'm not that good at science and find science material hard and mildly interesting, nervous about potential academic performance, have to slog through years of that before getting to the good stuff

IMHO, you need to seriously consider these cons. As someone who has just graduated from medical school (Actually, graduation is this Sunday ), I can say that medical school is a long and often arduous road. I personally love studying physiology and medicine. This helped me get through medical school with most of my sanity . But if I didn't like studying the material....

 

[whopper]

-Poor quality of life in residency

Also add poor quality of life in medschool!

I went through 3 failed relationships in medschool directly because of medschool. I found most of my fellow medstudents to be asocial, eccentric (not in a good way) people who didn't really give a damn for people in general & went to medschool because their parents made them do it,.

Also you'll go through 4 years of hardcore education where very little of it is directly focused on mental health. I found this frustrating. Having to memorize histo slides was a pain in the butt, especially since I knew I wanted to do psychiatry from the start.

I found the medical education has its uses in psychiatry when you are trying to rule out medical causes of psychiatric disorders and working with the other nonpsychiatrist doctors. However medical school is brutal & intense work and so little of it is what you want to learn.

 

[maranatha]

Also add poor quality of life in medschool!

I went through 3 failed relationships in medschool directly because of medschool. I found most of my fellow medstudents to be asocial, eccentric (not in a good way) people who didn't really give a damn for people in general & went to medschool because their parents made them do it,.

Wow!

Just to balance whopper's unfortunate experience: I met many incredible people at medical school who are committed to patient care, very gregarious, and fun to be around. I also met my wife during medical, got married, and have made many life long friends. Yes, medical school is very demanding and one gives up much of their social life. I'm not sure where whopper went to medical school, but my experience was different and I wouldn't trade it in for anything. Of course, there are always going to be some a$& holes at any school and those who I would never let be my doctor....

 

[whopper]

I'm not sure where whopper went to medical school

Don't think its important-but I went to St. George's. I think its more about how with a class that's not that big, the high school BS thing starts. In a big university--you can make the society you want. In a class where you know everyone, the social have & have nots start.

I don't think it was so much a school thing as perhaps a specific class thing. I'm sure other classes were better than others.

The day of my first rotation, I remember moving into a convent (the hospital was Catholic owned & students got to stay in a convent that clergy used to live in).

All the rooms were empty except for 1 other and I knocked on it, just to introduce myself (other students were moving in later). The guy was full well in his room but didn't answer & just ignored me. The entire time I was with there with him (about 4 weeks) the guy just pretty much ignored my existence. After 3 days of the guy pretty much being rude to me via not acknowledging my existence I just figured I'd ignore him too.

He had a type of "serial killer" presence. Oh yeah I'm sure he wasn't a serial killer but you get my drift. He just had that thousand mile stare whenever you looked at him. Never talked, was very cold and any time he was nice to a patient it was because he was trained to do so because of clinical skills classes.

The guy wasn't from my school, but just my opinion, there's more of this type of person in medschool than other places. Just figure some people are schizoid hermits who need to study all the time at the cost of their humanity.

 

[4EverBluDevils]

Also you'll go through 4 years of hardcore education where very little of it is directly focused on mental health. I found this frustrating. Having to memorize histo slides was a pain in the butt, especially since I knew I wanted to do psychiatry from the start.

I found the medical education has its uses in psychiatry when you are trying to rule out medical causes of psychiatric disorders and working with the other nonpsychiatrist doctors. However medical school is brutal & intense work and so little of it is what you want to learn.

This is scaring the crap out of me. I am really not that good in science nor that interested in the material. And everyone is describing med school work as extremely difficult.

 

[DrIng]

You can do this if you want to. I hadn't formally studied science since grade 10 whenI started medicals chool. But you do have to be itnerested in what you're studying. And I'm sorry if this is scarying you but it's better to figure out if it's what you want to do before there's too much invested in it...

 

[TheWowEffect]

I think the med school was a lot of fun. Tough but fun as well. Having a life depends on a lot of factors including your own personality and ability to get along well with people from various backgrounds and with a variety of opinions. So go ahead and listen to your own gut feeling rather than making a decision based on experiences of random people ranting and raving on a message board.

 

[spyspy]

Having sat and voted as a member of my medical school's admissions committee, I can tell you that it is far more difficult to get accepted to medical school and complete residency than it is to enter into any Psychology PhD program. In any given year, there are roughly 45,000 applicants competing for 17,000 allopathic medical school positions. Most people are expected to have a 3.5 GPA (after some brutal basic science courses) and a 30 on their MCAT to be competitive. We would sometimes turn down people with an Ivy League 3.7/33/research experience just because an interviewer didn't like them--it's that competitive.

Not to start a fight, but the admissions rate at any halfway decent clinical PhD psych program these days is about as competitive or moreso than med school. Saying it is "far more difficult" is an exaggeration. The diploma mills are artificially inflating admission rates, unfortunately.

With that said...to the original poster, if you're unsure, don't go for the PhD. There are plenty of people who want the spot for sure, and the PhD will take more in the range of 5-7 years plus post-docs. If you're in it for the money, go for the MD. Brush up on your science.

 

[whopper]

This is scaring the crap out of me. I am really not that good in science nor that interested in the material.

I don't want you to be scared out of good decision making.

Let me give you a bottom line rating scale.

If you can hack biochem, anatomy (including the dreaded lab), histology, all at the same time--then don't worry about your skill in sciences.

If you can't hack it, reconsider or don't go for it. When I say hack it--I mean just passing.

I've seen plenty of nonscience people try to hack medschool. Some people can do it, some can't. The people who couldn't studied till they dropped and couldn't make it, and on top of that accumulated a lot of debt before they failed out or quit.

If you've taken hardcore science classes you can gauge your own performance. In medschool-you're taking about 15 credits of hardcore science classes per term and add to that about 5-10 hrs of lab credits.

Add to the dilemna that almost everyone there has had these classes a few times--most of the people there were biology or biochemistry during premed. You're also going to have very little psychological stuff in the curriculum, so remember, its a lot of science--2 straight years of it with only 1 behavioral science course in that curriculum.

If you've done a term with hardcore science credits-you know. The only positive factor that could sway things to your direction is that when you're in medschool, everyone in the same class does add a little positive twist. The culture is for studying which makes the science classes a little more conducive.

The people I've noticed who liked medschool were good at science to begin with and had the luck of being with a good class. If you're not good at science, I'd at least consider taking some hardcore science classes before you enter medschool. That way if you're not confident in your hardcore sciences, then at least you'll have taken the class before. You'll also be able to gauge yourself. I'm not just talking the pre-med requirements. Try histoloy, pathology, microbiology & anatomy. Trust me on this--medschool academia is like a marathon where you run at maximum pace from the very start.

Don't be like some people I knew--they got kicked out or quit while accumulating over $100,000 in medschool debt.

Saying it is "far more difficult" is an exaggeration.

We're talking degrees here. Its very very difficult to get into medschool at all-even the lower tier ones. Its possible to get into a lower tier psychology Ph.D. program if you weren't the most magnificent candidate.

However its also next to impossible to get into the better psychology programs.

Either way--psychology or MD or DO--its very impressive to get into a program to begin with. I got just as much respect for a psychologist as I do an M.D. or D.O.

 

[Anasazi23]

Psychology vs. Psychiatry.

I want to be either a counseling psychologist or a psychiatrist. I decided not to be a clinical psychologist because it's just as competitive and hard as the road to psychiatry for less pay. I decided against Social Work because it's less therapy, more paperwork, less pay. I would really appreciate your opinions on this.

These are vastly different fields. I think that a lot of people assume that psychology and psychiatry are more similar than dissimilar simply because they are both 'mental health.' I find that the fields vary tremendously in their approach to the patient (psychology often doesn't even call them 'patients' to begin with), background of understanding, and treatment goal. The medical model is vastly different from either psychology or counselling school, which often focus on more theoretical, less biological causes of psychopathology. The treatment approach is therefore vastly different as well, as a general rule.

Counseling Psychologist
PROS- Program more interesting, focuses more on therapy
-Road probably much cheaper

CONS- Hard to get hired, most employers looking for Clinical psychologists
-Not that well paid I don't think ($60K?)
-Mostly work with less serious disorders (depression/anxiety) and while I would enjoy that I would also want to help people with things like schizophrenia, OCD, suicidal thoughts
-The road to PhD is long, 3? years masters, 4? years for a separate PhD
-Not an exact science, would not feeling like I was becoming smarter, learning an actual craft or trade, don't take the material as seriously

It's hard to get hired as either a clinical psychologist or a counselling psychologist nowadays. The market for them is largely saturated.

Psychiatrist
PROS- Have power to prescribe which makes a hugh impact on a person's life
-I get the feeling finding good therapy is more a hit or miss situation than finding the right medicine
-Can be trained in psychotherapy anyway, so essentially get to do both jobs
-Money talks, I'm not even gonna act like some saint
-Road is shorter, 5 years until payday rather than 7ish

Try 8 years minimum to practice as a board-eligible psychiatrist. 9 if you want to do child/adolescent.
Yes, the unconditional ability to practice aspects of medicine and prescribe without any restriction is invaluable. The medical knowledge you have in the back of your head while seeing patients is something for which there is no substitute, and cannot be garnered from non-medical training.

CONS
-Heavy postbacc and med school debt
-Poor quality of life in residency
-I'm not that good at science and find science material hard and mildly interesting, nervous about potential academic performance, have to slog through years of that before getting to the good stuff

Yes, life sucks while you are in med school, and often throughout residency as well. Individual courses in med school are hard enough...when you combine them with 4 others, including lab at the same time creates a brutal situation. If you don't find physiology and science interesting, med school will be do-able, but that much harder.

Keep in mind that residency pays usually pays a higher salary than psychology internship and/or post-doc. The hours are usually much harder though, and the time commitment is long. You need to do 6 months of medicine and neurology during your PGY-I year. This is often disheartening for those chomping at the bit to get involved in psychiatry finally. But as mentioned by other posters above, it's essential to psychiatric practice. Just something else to consider.

 

[Ollie123]

Not to start a fight, but the admissions rate at any halfway decent clinical PhD psych program these days is about as competitive or moreso than med school. Saying it is "far more difficult" is an exaggeration. The diploma mills are artificially inflating admission rates, unfortunately.

I was going to mention that too!

Seriously 17,000/45,000 sounds like WONDERFUL odds to me. I was applying to "mostly" second tier PhD programs with a sprinkling of the top ones and the highest acceptance rate I saw was 8% ! One school I applied to accepts less than 1% of applicants each year

That being said, I agree with what everyone else has said, it sounds like you are leaning more towards medicine but are afraid (and understandably so! ). I think you mentioned doing a post-bac? Take that and see how well you can handle the science courses. If you can, great - go to med school and do well If not....then come back and take another look at psych.

 

[4EverBluDevils]

well now I'm leaning towards psychiatry. It will be tough, but if I can get into med school I think it will be worthwhile.

 

[whopper]

If you go to medschool, arm yourself up.

Do a few of the medical classes in undergrad to beef yourself up.

Seriously 17,000/45,000 sounds like WONDERFUL odds to me

Same here. Even several foreign medschools have an acceptance rate of less than 10%. 17/45= 37.7%

Doesn't sound bad to me at all.

I knew guys with a GPA over 3.7, had decent MCATs that applied to every single M.D. program in the country and got in nowhere.

 

[Anasazi23]

There are a couple of key differences when discussing admission statistics of MD/DO programs vs. PsyD/PhD.

First, the applicant pool is very different. Psychology grad school requires GRE and a psych degree in most cases. Many more college students meet this requirement than do pre-med students, who must pass and be competitive in chemistry I, II with lab, physics I, II with lab, orgo I, II with lab, biology I, II with lab, and sometimes calculus, and must take the MCATs. So the default applicant pool is more rigorous than a BA or BS in psychology from that perspective. Many poorly qualified candidates never even make it to the application process due to failure of meeting these pre-med standards. Virtually no one fails out of psychology undergrad.

They might not want to report it, but professional school PhD and PsyD schools have acceptance rates of close to 60%. One can call this artifically inflating, but the same can be said for overseas med schools. The acceptance rates still stand.

The acceptance rates for med school are usually expressed in overall applicant acceptance rate...not by individual program acceptance. Therefore, you may have a 33% chance to get in anywhere. Psychology programs usually express these in terms of individual program. So, a school may have a 10% accept rate, but they don't go on to say if that person gained acceptance at another institution. In that case, the acceptance rate is higher.

Here's from psichi.org:

Acceptance Rates
What are my chances of being accepted into graduate school? An anxiety-provoking consideration for applicants and a controversial topic for faculty members is acceptance rates for graduate programs in psychology. We computed acceptance rates by dividing the number of students accepted to a program by the number of applications. Acceptance rates thus refer to the percentage of applicants accepted for admission into a single graduate program, not the percentage of the entire applicant pool to all programs accepted for admission in a given year. The APA-accredited PhD program in clinical psychology at University X, for example, may accept only 15 of 150 applicants (10%), but many of the applicants not accepted to University X will be admitted elsewhere. Although only 10% of the applicants to a single PhD program in clinical psychology might be accepted into that particular program, about half of the entire applicant pool will probably be accepted into some clinical PhD program.
Table 1 presents the acceptance rates by subfields for doctoral programs, and Table 2 presents the acceptance rates for master's programs. The mean acceptance rates to doctoral psychology programs range from a low of 19% (personality psychology, social psychology) to a high of 50% (educational psychology). The overall mean is 27.4%; that is, more than a quarter of applicants to any doctoral program are typically admitted into that program.
The overall acceptance rate to clinical psychology doctoral programs is 21%. This number includes admission to both PhD and PsyD programs and to both APA-accredited and non-APA-accredited programs.
The 21% acceptance rate masks substantial differences across the various types of clinical doctoral programs. APA-accredited PhD programs accept, on average, only 10% of applicants whereas non-APA accredited PhD programs accept 20% of applicants. APA-accredited PsyD programs accept, on average, 40% of applicants, whereas non-APA-accredited PsyD programs accept 60%. The pattern is clear: clinical PhD programs are more selective than clinical PsyD programs as a rule, and APA-accredited programs are more selective than non-APA accredited programs. The average acceptance rates range from 10% to 60%. Thus, in clinical psychology, one has to be careful about generalizing about acceptance rates and specific in identifying the type of program (PhD, PsyD, APA-accredited, non-APA-accredited, and so on).
The mean acceptance rates to master's psychology programs range from a low of 32% (neuroscience) to a high of 73% (quantitative). The average acceptance rates for master's programs are 25% to 35% higher than for doctoral programs in the same subfield. The overall mean acceptance rate is 57.4%; that is, more than half of applicants to any master's program are typically admitted into that program.

Not saying one is better or worse than the other. It's completely an individual decision and how you ultimately want to end up practicing - either through the medical model or the psychological model. It's just more apples vs. oranges than people think.

 

[Ollie123]

Good point Anasazi, I was mostly just reacting to the idea that 17,000/45,000 was considered to be bad odds (which I don't think is true at all). You are completely correct regarding the "science" classes...not many psych folks take orgo (sort of the gold standard for "Hard pre-med classes", at least where I am). I crapped out a 3.9 without even trying, and while I'm confident I could have done as well if I had taken orgo or biochem, chances are I'd have been spending a lot more time in the library to do it

Acceptance processes are very different...clinical psych unfortunately relies on lots of "intangibles" like research match, etc. GPA/GRE still very important but probably less so than GPA/MCAT for medicine. Personally I think the hardest part about clinical psych is that you have to know almost EXACTLY what you want to do before you get in. Its like having to pick not just a residency, but a fellowship before you even apply to med school.

Yes, its kind of a stupid system in my eyes.

Anyways, that is all a side tangent. Both are very very hard to get into in different ways. I wouldn't pick which one you want to go into based on the admissions process since both have their problems. You sound like you are more interested in medicine, so I say go medicine

 

[PsychMD2100]

Good point Anasazi, I was mostly just reacting to the idea that 17,000/45,000 was considered to be bad odds (which I don't think is true at all). You are completely correct regarding the "science" classes...not many psych folks take orgo (sort of the gold standard for "Hard pre-med classes", at least where I am). I crapped out a 3.9 without even trying, and while I'm confident I could have done as well if I had taken orgo or biochem, chances are I'd have been spending a lot more time in the library to do it

Acceptance processes are very different...clinical psych unfortunately relies on lots of "intangibles" like research match, etc. GPA/GRE still very important but probably less so than GPA/MCAT for medicine. Personally I think the hardest part about clinical psych is that you have to know almost EXACTLY what you want to do before you get in. Its like having to pick not just a residency, but a fellowship before you even apply to med school.

Yes, its kind of a stupid system in my eyes.

Anyways, that is all a side tangent. Both are very very hard to get into in different ways. I wouldn't pick which one you want to go into based on the admissions process since both have their problems. You sound like you are more interested in medicine, so I say go medicine

Ollie123 and spyspy,

I stand by my claim that being accepted to an allopathic medical school is far more competitive than any Psychology PhD program. This is not to say that one is better or worse--it's just a simple fact that the MD is far harder to attain.

With your examples of 1% acceptance rates, I would like to see what those applicants studied in college and where. Many psychology PHD candidates studied the social sciences in college without having to take intense courses in the biological or physical sciences. I'd also like to know from where your PHD candidates are getting their degrees.

This is not to insult the social sciences (I have a BA in a social science myself) but it is an undeniable fact that the biological/physical sciences are far more demanding, especially when you factor in competitive grading curves. I doubt many Psychology PhD candidates are getting degrees in Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, Chemistry, or Physics. Chances are, they're studying Psychology (a rather easy program in college), Communications, or Human Resource Management.

In addition, many applicants to allopathic medical schools come from top private colleges or the very best state universities. At my med school, by the time candidates made it to the interview round, they were almost always from a Top 25 college. I'd like to see from which colleges the average Psychology PhD program draws its applicants.

Ollie123 and spyspy are likely to be Psychology PhD types so they've probably never faced the brutality of premed "weedout" courses--or perhaps they have, and that's why they're in a psychology PhD program!

To respond to Ollie123's assertion that he "crapped" out a 3.9, I'd like to see how he would do after Organic Chem, Differential Equations, Thermodynamics, Electricity and Magnetism, and Cell Bio. It's easy to speak in hypotheticals but it's entirely different to do it. I remember how our profs in the said courses would hand out Cs and Ds like they were candy. When you toss in a couple courses that count for only 2.0 or 1.0 toward a GPA, it's incredible how hard it is to maintain a 3.9. Something tells me your 3.9 might become a 2.9 after the onslaught--even with you "spending a lot more time in the library".

Assuming they could even survive 4 years of "weedout" basic sciences and the MCAT, I would like to see how the candidates from your 1%-acceptance-rate psychology PhD program would fare at a med school admissions committee session. I'd like to see how applicants who "crapped" their way through college stand up against real competition.

You can spin this debate an infinite number of ways but, to the original poster, ask yourself 3 questions. Who prescribes the medicine? Who directly interfaces with the medical system to secure comprehensive care for mental health patients? Who earns, on average, triple the salary?

Get the MD if you want to do mental health.

 

[Encephalopathy]

-I'm not that good at science and find science material hard and mildly interesting, nervous about potential academic performance, have to slog through years of that before getting to the good stuff

Take the MCAT. If you can tolerate the studying and do well enough to get into med school, you'll probably be able to handle the science.

Besides the science, realize that you'll have to rotate through stuff like ob/gyn and surgery, and it will be painful. You'll be sticking your finger in people's asses, among other fairly disgusting things. Just something to add to your Cons, though in my opinion psychiatry is still the way to go.

 

[Dramkinola]

I dunno why these Psychiatry vs Psychology questions keep popping up.

You either want to be a physician or not.

It's like asking whether you want to be a Social worker or psychologist, or a nurse or a doctor.

I actually think the latter is more appropriate, as they treat the same patients, except one prescribes (Doctor) and the other does not (Nurse), but members of the other, feeling they have sufficient knowledge of medical care, seek prescribing rights (Nurse Practitioners vs Psychologists with prescribing rights.)

I do not mean to start the old argument, as I do not feel there is one. You are either a Physician or not.

 

[Ollie123]

I'm not going to dive into this debate since I don't want to derail this thread, but just to address the personal digs let me say.

I had a 4.0 in the pre-med classes I did take and was invited to be in the BS/MD program when I had applied for undergrad (which I turned down). I chose psych because I wanted a graduate education that focused on research, not clinical work.

And believe me, if they wanted to put in some organic-chem level of difficulty courses in my undergrad psych program I'd have been the first one lined up at the door to take it Frankly, I do think its ridiculous how "easy" a major psych is at most schools.

Anyhow, I'm done, just wanted to address that. OP - best of luck with whichever path you choose. I encourage you to go with medicine.

 

[spyspy]

I'm not going to address this further, but every program I applied to had a less than 5% acceptance rate, and a less than 1% acceptance rate for the individual professor with whom I aspired to work. For all your difficult coursework, we have other difficult requirements (eg publications). Many (even most?) of the students at the top programs (and I say top meaning even top 50) took time off to do full time research. The Clinical PhD is very much a research degree at these programs, but to limit the idea of "mental health" to meds is absurd. Both MDs and PhDs contribute to mental health. We need the research to make intelligent decisions about the delivery of treatment. Additionally, research has shown that in terms of treatment delivery, the degree or type of mental health worker is not related to treatment outcome. There are so many other factors at work.

We also know how to properly assess statistics.

Seriously, though, it's apples to oranges. Not all of us would do well in medical school courses, and not all of you would do well in our classes and requirements. I'd like to see more mutual respect, though. I, and many of my colleagues, are doing our research in medical settings, and it just comes down to personal choice and ultimate aspirations.

And I don't think salary is a valid way to measure the importance of a profession.

So, in conclusion, I think they're both very competitive, and it's in everyone's best interest to get off their high-horses and collaborate.

Ollie123 and spyspy,

I stand by my claim that being accepted to an allopathic medical school is far more competitive than any Psychology PhD program. This is not to say that one is better or worse--it's just a simple fact that the MD is far harder to attain.

With your examples of 1% acceptance rates, I would like to see what those applicants studied in college and where. Many psychology PHD candidates studied the social sciences in college without having to take intense courses in the biological or physical sciences. I'd also like to know from where your PHD candidates are getting their degrees.

This is not to insult the social sciences (I have a BA in a social science myself) but it is an undeniable fact that the biological/physical sciences are far more demanding, especially when you factor in competitive grading curves. I doubt many Psychology PhD candidates are getting degrees in Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, Chemistry, or Physics. Chances are, they're studying Psychology (a rather easy program in college), Communications, or Human Resource Management.

In addition, many applicants to allopathic medical schools come from top private colleges or the very best state universities. At my med school, by the time candidates made it to the interview round, they were almost always from a Top 25 college. I'd like to see from which colleges the average Psychology PhD program draws its applicants.

Ollie123 and spyspy are likely to be Psychology PhD types so they've probably never faced the brutality of premed "weedout" courses--or perhaps they have, and that's why they're in a psychology PhD program!

To respond to Ollie123's assertion that he "crapped" out a 3.9, I'd like to see how he would do after Organic Chem, Differential Equations, Thermodynamics, Electricity and Magnetism, and Cell Bio. It's easy to speak in hypotheticals but it's entirely different to do it. I remember how our profs in the said courses would hand out Cs and Ds like they were candy. When you toss in a couple courses that count for only 2.0 or 1.0 toward a GPA, it's incredible how hard it is to maintain a 3.9. Something tells me your 3.9 might become a 2.9 after the onslaught--even with you "spending a lot more time in the library".

Assuming they could even survive 4 years of "weedout" basic sciences and the MCAT, I would like to see how the candidates from your 1%-acceptance-rate psychology PhD program would fare at a med school admissions committee session. I'd like to see how applicants who "crapped" their way through college stand up against real competition.

You can spin this debate an infinite number of ways but, to the original poster, ask yourself 3 questions. Who prescribes the medicine? Who directly interfaces with the medical system to secure comprehensive care for mental health patients? Who earns, on average, triple the salary?

Get the MD if you want to do mental health.

 

[ratched]

PsychMD2100 is either a ***** or a sh$^-disturber. Suffice it to say that he/she does not speak for all of us, or, really, ANY of us educated psychiatry trainees.

It's unfortunate that spyspy and Ollie123 visit this forum to shed light on the OP's dilemma and are met with such classlessness.

There are brilliant minds in most every field, not just medicine, and landing a spot in a clinical psych program is at LEAST every bit as hard as landing a spot in med school.

 

[PsychMD2100]

PsychMD2100 is either a ***** or a sh$^-disturber. Suffice it to say that he/she does not speak for all of us, or, really, ANY of us educated psychiatry trainees.

It's unfortunate that spyspy and Ollie123 visit this forum to shed light on the OP's dilemma and are met with such classlessness.

There are brilliant minds in most every field, not just medicine, and landing a spot in a clinical psych program is at LEAST every bit as hard as landing a spot in med school.

ratched,

I find it ironic that you use the term "classlessness" after being the only person in this thread to use both an expletive (sh$^) as well as a term that refers to a class of people with mental subnormality (*****). As an "educated psychiatry trainee", you should know better that using the term "*****" as an insult is an inappropriate use of the word. It is like using the term "homosexual" as an insult, which is unacceptable in 21st century mental health care.

Name calling aside, I still haven't heard a reasoned argument that refutes the claims that I set forth in my prior posts. Intelligent people from reputable institutions will not swallow the assertion that a Psychology PhD program is comparable in competitiveness to an allopathic medical school. You can write all you want in this forum, but you're not going to convince a person with academic credibility to see things your way.

I stand by my statements and the advice that I give, however unpalatable it is to our psychology colleagues, is the exact same advice that I would give to friends and family.

Real-world practice is an unforgiving environment. It makes absolutely no sense to accept a position that is limited in scope when an unrestricted position is available. I have respect for folks that try and fail to become physicians--at least they have walked the line.

However, I can't stand by when people give out poor advice to a person who's at a juncture where he/she can equip him/herself with the tools needed to control one's destiny in mental health care.

In the final analysis, those that can, do. Those that can't, go for the Psychology PhD

MD = Unrestricted Scope in Mental Health Care Practice

 

[Anasazi23]

People, keep it civil, and pull back on the insults please.

 

[Dartos Vader]

ratched,

I find it ironic that you use the term "classlessness" after being the only person in this thread to use both an expletive (sh$^) as well as a term that refers to a class of people with mental subnormality (*****). As an "educated psychiatry trainee", you should know better that using the term "*****" as an insult is an inappropriate use of the word. It is like using the term "homosexual" as an insult, which is unacceptable in 21st century mental health care.

Name calling aside, I still haven't heard a reasoned argument that refutes the claims that I set forth in my prior posts. Intelligent people from reputable institutions will not swallow the assertion that a Psychology PhD program is comparable in competitiveness to an allopathic medical school. You can write all you want in this forum, but you're not going to convince a person with academic credibility to see things your way.

I stand by my statements and the advice that I give, however unpalatable it is to our psychology colleagues, is the exact same advice that I would give to friends and family.

Real-world practice is an unforgiving environment. It makes absolutely no sense to accept a position that is limited in scope when an unrestricted position is available. I have respect for folks that try and fail to become physicians--at least they have walked the line.

However, I can't stand by when people give out poor advice to a person who's at a juncture where he/she can equip him/herself with the tools needed to control one's destiny in mental health care.

In the final analysis, those that can, do. Those that can't, go for the Psychology PhD

MD = Unrestricted Scope in Mental Health Care Practice

Take it easy guys! It's not really important which is more competitive unless you are debating between the two. It shouldn't be some sort of pride thing whose program is harder to get into. I hardly think it is appropriate to insult all the people who chose a different model of practice. That doesn't get us anywhere. Getting a PhD in ANYTHING requires an immense amount of dedication, intelligence and hard work. Similarly for MD/DO. Just choose what makes you happy and be glad that there are people who want to do the things you have no interest in. I'm ecstatic that people want to research and do all that academic stuff that I can't stand. It lets me do what I actually like to do. See patients.

 

[Ollie123]

Your ignorance amuses me.

I should also point out its entirely possible to state a point without acting like a jerk.

Wasn't that long ago someone came to the psych board asking why we don't post on the psychiatry board more often so that was why I decided to venture over, now I understand why.

Bye folks, feel free to drop by the psychology board or PM me if you aren't a jackass.