UC Davis Pain Fellowship

[yanks26dmb]

Does anyone know if doing a psych residency significantly increase odds of matching into a pain fellowship at the same institution?

I have a psych residency interview at Davis and my preference for this program would likely jump quite a bit if it meant I'd have an easier time getting into their pain program. I love psychiatry, but I have a fear that I will miss some of the hands on aspect of medicine. I spent a fair bit of time with a PMR pain doc during third year and have developed an inclination towards pain over my third year of medical school.

I do realize anesthesia would make things much easier, but too late to change at this point, and I really do enjoy psychiatry more than anesthesia. Any advice would be great - thanks everyone.

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[willabeast]

// Any advice would be great// You like Pain >Psych>Anesthesia. Suggest you do as much Psych as you can stand, then switch to a PMR residency, followed by a Pain fellowship.

 

[painbound123]

Does anyone know if doing a psych residency significantly increase odds of matching into a pain fellowship at the same institution?

I have a psych residency interview at Davis and my preference for this program would likely jump quite a bit if it meant I'd have an easier time getting into their pain program. I love psychiatry, but I have a fear that I will miss some of the hands on aspect of medicine. I spent a fair bit of time with a PMR pain doc during third year and have developed an inclination towards pain over my third year of medical school.

I do realize anesthesia would make things much easier, but too late to change at this point, and I really do enjoy psychiatry more than anesthesia. Any advice would be great - thanks everyone.

If you want to do Pain, then switch to anesthesia now. It is late in the app cycle, but it’ll work out and you can always scramble into a medicine year and apply for many of the physician only anesthesia spots next year. You will face an uphill battle applying to pain with a psych background. And from a clinical standpoint, you will also be behind.
My 2 cent.
Good luck.

 

[Orin]

You'll have your best chance of entering a pain fellowship if you do psychiatry at your home site, assuming you're not a horrible person to work with or be around. Connections matter.

Your odds will increase if there are more spots.
Your odds will increase if there were pain faculty with psychiatry training in their backgrounds.

No one can predict what the psych -> pain route will look like in 3 years when you'd be applying, but if it were me, I would humbly email the pain fellowship directors at the academic centers you're looking at for their thoughts about shadowing on your post-call days and possibilities for applying in a few years.

Based on my limited knowledge, I'd look at a place like UPitt with the vice chair, Dr Wasan, being a pain fellowship trained psychiatrist, as their pain fellowship has something like 8 fellows. If the Psychiatry there is tolerable, that might be a good target for residency

 

[yanks26dmb]

You'll have your best chance of entering a pain fellowship if you do psychiatry at your home site, assuming you're not a horrible person to work with or be around. Connections matter.

Your odds will increase if there are more spots.
Your odds will increase if there were pain faculty with psychiatry training in their backgrounds.

No one can predict what the psych -> pain route will look like in 3 years when you'd be applying, but if it were me, I would humbly email the pain fellowship directors at the academic centers you're looking at for their thoughts about shadowing on your post-call days and possibilities for applying in a few years.

Based on my limited knowledge, I'd look at a place like UPitt with the vice chair, Dr Wasan, being a pain fellowship trained psychiatrist, as their pain fellowship has something like 8 fellows. If the Psychiatry there is tolerable, that might be a good target for residency

UC Davis has something like 6 fellows..they do take a multi-disciplinary approach and have psychiatric trained pain docs on staff. I would imagine being a good resident at UC Davis and someone enjoyable to be around would help, just wasn't sure how much. I realize thats a tough question to answer.

Is it insane to think I could do pain 3ish days a week and have general psych office hours another two?

 

[Taus]

Is it insane to think I could do pain 3ish days a week and have general psych office hours another two?

Pretty sure that’s the norm for most pain docs, though perhaps more than 2 days is psych

 

[yanks26dmb]

Pretty sure that’s the norm for most pain docs, though perhaps more than 2 days is psych

Does that include time in the OR during pain days? From the sounds of UCD's program, they train all fellows to complete interventional procedures.

 

[noirjacobin]

Totally doable. Not easy, but doable if this is something you really want. Let your residency director know, up front, your goal of pain, and get the psychiatry program support.

You need to develop relationships/mentors with the people in the pain department early, do research and publish in pain, shadow, develop some hands on skills while in residency (IVs, MSK exam), and show that you are a good guy/easy to get along with.

I did it, so it's doable. I am very happy with my career in pain, with my background, and I do good work/I think patients benefit from the combination training.

 

[mymembernames]

Totally doable. Not easy, but doable if this is something you really want. Let your residency director know, up front, your goal of pain, and get the psychiatry program support.

You need to develop relationships/mentors with the people in the pain department early, do research and publish in pain, shadow, develop some hands on skills while in residency (IVs, MSK exam), and show that you are a good guy/easy to get along with.

I did it, so it's doable. I am very happy with my career in pain, with my background, and I do good work/I think patients benefit from the combination training.

What made you want to do pain rather than psych? Is there a big salary difference?


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[noirjacobin]

I was originally going to go into ortho, did my psych rotation at the end of third year, and really loved it, never really considered it before then. While continuing on the ortho track, learned about pain while on one of my away rotations. Seemed pretty cool, very procedural, even had some OR cases, a lot of doctor patient relationship, continuity of care, which is what I determined I really enjoy about medicine in general, and turned out it was an ACGME subspecialty of psychiatry. Don't think I would have been happy as an orthopedic surgeon, but I enjoyed the people and the culture of ortho. Now I do pain in the orthopedic department. Funny.