UC Irvine vs Harbor UCLA

[belgadoc]

Does anybody have thoughts positive or otherwise on these two programs? I have upcoming interviews with them and havent been able to find muchout about them, ie., are they resident friendly, what are they known for, call schedules, work load.
Any info would be really helpful.
thanks! 😉
Belgadoc

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[PsychMD]

Scutwork has some opinions on UCLA-Harbor, although not apparently yet on Irvine

http://www.scutwork.com/cgi-bin/links/page.cgi?g=Psychiatry/Pacific/index.html&d=1

 

[belgadoc]

Thanks for that site. It was helpful but it would be great to get some more recent imput. Anybody out there with recent views/opinions on the program?
thanks 🙂

Does anybody have thoughts positive or otherwise on these two programs? I have upcoming interviews with them and havent been able to find muchout about them, ie., are they resident friendly, what are they known for, call schedules, work load.
Any info would be really helpful.
thanks! 😉
Belgadoc

 

[carlosc1dbz]

I was also wondering the same thing as you. I wonder if there are any current residents out there that can help us out with this question. It so hard to find this information out. I went to their website and they have a residents manual there that talks about a lot of things, including call. The PGY 1 pay was around 41K. Is that in line with other places? Seemed kinda low to me. Anyway, lets see if anyone can help.

 

[splik]

hi i did a sub-i at harbor a while back and had a fantastic time! the residents were extremely welcoming and there seemed to be a strong sense of camaraderie between them. the attendings i worked with were all fantastic and again went out of there way to make me feel welcome. they were very enthusiastic about teaching and most of the didactics i went to were very good. residents start outpatient work in PGY2 and generally seemed please with their psychotherapy training. Although it is a county program, there are rotations at the VA, a HMO, and UCLA-NPI/Semel, and 4th years have the same elective options as the NPI residents. there is also a movie night where they watch a film and then the attendings discuss the psychiatric/psychoanalytic issues raised. Not sure about the child exposure but the child attendings i met were great and their teaching was excellent and they really conveyed a passion for child psychiatry, the practice of which quite frankly is a national disgrace. they also emphasise phenomenology which sadly most american psychiatrists don't have a clue about (hopkins is probably the other main place which emphasises the phenomenological approach). There is also a decent amount of vacation, health insurance is paid for, and your meals are free (not just when on call like at many places) and there is moonlighting within the program which apparently paid reasonably well andthe pay progression is alot greater than in other programs so you may make less as an intern it is about the same as other program later on.

the drawbacks as i could tell are that Harbor isn't the most aesthetically pleasing hospital, it's in Torrance (though residents lived in places like manhattan beach), if you don't like working with underserved populations you'll hate it, there may be a bit more 'scutwork', one of the interns complained that during his ER rotation he was treated as if he didn't know any medicine because he was a psych resident, the pay is a little lower (website says PGY1 is $43957), the typical frustrations of the county system, LA is huge so the hospital sites are far apart, you have to do a month of neuro in PGY-2 (you don't get it all out of the way as an intern) and the LA area is a bit more expensive than some other cali areas (but not like the bay area)

if you enjoy working with more indigent populations and want to be part of a program which feels more like a family i really recommend it and would strongly recommend the PsychER sub-i as it is a great learning experience and you will not feel under pressure as you might doing audition rotations at some other programs.

 

[billypilgrim37]

UCI has a reputation of sending tons of their own med students into psychiatry. This is 4th hand info I heard a long time ago, but I feel like they've had years where they've filled entirely with their own. They must be doing something pretty right if this is the situation, so my bias is that UCI is probably a pretty good program.

 

[nitemagi]

UCI has a reputation of sending tons of their own med students into psychiatry. This is 4th hand info I heard a long time ago, but I feel like they've had years where they've filled entirely with their own. They must be doing something pretty right if this is the situation, so my bias is that UCI is probably a pretty good program.

Less so since the PD stepped down a number of years ago (Jerry Maguire, yeah I know).

 

[nitemagi]

A partially underadvertised aspect of Harbor is that each of the 3 main county hospitals have "catchment" areas. Harbor's includes LAX. So everytime a manic patient from another country flies in thinking they want to be a movie star, they end up at Harbor. Apparently the county will pay to fly them back (and residents have the option of being the chaperone) to their home country.

Harbor is known for being a very good county system, and with many of the benefits of UCLA without the political and ego headaches that NPI has.

 

[notdeadyet]

There were several Harbor-UCLA reviews in recent residency review threads (last year's, the year before that, etc.).

How much you'd like Harbor is almost entirely dependent on how much you'd like the county experience. If you live/eat/breath county psychiatry, it's one of the best in the country. If you like the academic superhospital tertiary care center, you'll like it a lot less, regardless of your 4th year electives. I'm a NorCal guy, but I am able to admit that LA county has done a very enviable job with how they do mental health, much better than any of the other populous counties in the state. Look over past reviews for more detail.

I know nothing of UCI. Not my area.

 

[plickfu]

Agree with the above about Harbor. It's a fantastic program on its own, and if your interests are in community psych and working with the underserved, I don't think there is a program to match it. When I interviewed there, I had a few great connections with the residents, and I loved it. It was very high on my rank list. The area is not particularly bad, either. Well, maybe if you're the podunk cornfields in Iowa or whatever and non-white people scare you, but it's otherwise a wonderfully diverse, working-class area of Los Angeles. Two drawbacks for me were that you can't start moonlighting until PGY-4, and, even though the residents were very committed to the population they serve, many of the graduating residents were going into private practice due to burn out with that system/population.

UCI is a bit of an odd bird. They keep a very low profile, somewhat intentionally for some reason, which does the progam a bit of a disservice, I think. Surprised nobody has mentioned the call schedule, because it's kind of famous. It varies by which rotation you're on, but short call is maybe 2-4 per month, 1-2 weekend calls (12-hrs) per month. UCI is also known for being a very laid back program; I can definitely corroborate this. Everyone (residnets, attendings, admin) is incredibly helpful and friendly. Lots of VA, but there are programs that definitely rely more heavily on their VA than UCI (UCSD, for example). You can moonlight as soon as you're licensed in your second year.

I know how hard it can be to get useful information about programs other than the big few, so best of luck.

 

[PistolPete]

Thanks a lot for all this useful information!

 

[billypilgrim37]

Less so since the PD stepped down a number of years ago (Jerry Maguire, yeah I know).

It takes a while for the pony to bring the news over them Rocky Mountains.

 

[Lauraaa]

Another option for people who want to have a combination of county training and working with underserved populations, but also would like to train in a large academic center: The main UCLA psychiatry residency program has an option called the "Harbor track" where one resident from the UCLA class will do their entire intern year of training at Harbor and then finish the remainder of their three years of training at the main UCLA site. 👍 Awesome experience.

 

[notdeadyet]

Another option for people who want to have a combination of county training and working with underserved populations, but also would like to train in a large academic center: The main UCLA psychiatry residency program has an option called the "Harbor track"

True. But you can also get this from USC (LA County) or UCSF (San Francisco General) among several others.

If you're evaluating California programs, finding the county experience is not hard to do even at top academic programs. For many, it's a primary mission.

 

[Sir James Bond]

I was reading up on programs and came across a few things here about UCLA-Harbor that have changed according to a contact I know there.

1. Moonlighting starts in PGY2, as early as the first half of their second year. Pay is high.

2. Everything stays at one hospital. There's no driving around. I think only Gero and Kaiser are offsite, and that's PGY3 I think.

3. Neuro is one month in PGY1. They get it out of the way as an intern and don't mess with it again.

4. You MAKE money from health insurance. LA county give residents a generous allowance to buy health insurance, and the policies cost LESS than the allowance so residents come out ahead by a few hundred each month.

5. Faculty and nursing staff stay around for years. Any place that has high turn-over is a red flag.

Great program. I'm think it's one of the best in SoCal. Good luck on interviews ladies and gents.

 

[Lauraaa]

2nd month of neuro is still done at Harbor, but it's done in PGY2 year to fulfill ACGME requirement of 2 months of neurology.

 

[Sir James Bond]

I see, so it's 1 month in PGY1 and 1 month in PGY2. No problem there I suppose. Means they remember their neurology longer.