VA psychology post-doc vs GS-11 position

[TCT2018]

What's the long term benefit of completing a post doc with the VA, if you have no desire to become ABPP?

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[Sanman]

The biggest long term benefit is being license eligible in all states. Beyond that, it depends what you want to do.

 

[WisNeuro]

If you ever move, it will make getting a license exponentially easier in many states. Also easier to get PSYPACT, IPC, among other things.

 

[texanpsychdoc]

So, personally speaking as someone who forgone a post-doc and went right into a GS-11 - it was a very good decision for me overall. Higher salary, I functioned as a psychologist, with the title and all. I started my career off as a GS-11 in BHIP just 2 months out of internship and got licensed 4 months after my doctorate was conferred. I am actually licensed in two states (Ohio and Texas) and just waiting on my conferral of PsyPact. It was pretty simply to document my post-doc experience as a GS-11 as I made sure I received weekly supervision for the whole year despite being licensed. So, when I moved to Texas, getting licensed was pretty straight forward. Ohio didn't require post-doc work, Texas did. Alternatively, I want to be double board certified, and I have already banked my credentials with ASPPB as an early entry applicant. I literally just need to complete this year of work experience as a GS-12 to qualify for ABPP in clinical psychology. So in sum, I have found that not completing a formal post-doc has not hindered me or made it more difficult to attain multiple licenses and PsyPact, but that's just me.

 

[summerbabe]

I did a postdoc at a large VA medical center so I received a bunch of new and varied training experiences (some of which was excellent) that I didn’t get during my VA internship.

As a generalist who was interested in more training and wasn’t settled on a specific career path following internship, this was a good overall choice for me in both development and continued professional clarification despite the lower pay.

I’m also pretty confident that these experiences helped me to land my 2 non-BHIP ‘specialty’ VA roles, which I’ve enjoyed more so than the standard BHIP style outpatient gigs that VA is always hiring for if I had gone the GS-11 route (including at my internship site).

 

[WisNeuro]

So, personally speaking as someone who forgone a post-doc and went right into a GS-11 - it was a very good decision for me overall. Higher salary, I functioned as a psychologist, with the title and all. I started my career off as a GS-11 in BHIP just 2 months out of internship and got licensed 4 months after my doctorate was conferred. I am actually licensed in two states (Ohio and Texas) and just waiting on my conferral of PsyPact. It was pretty simply to document my post-doc experience as a GS-11 as I made sure I received weekly supervision for the whole year despite being licensed. So, when I moved to Texas, getting licensed was pretty straight forward. Ohio didn't require post-doc work, Texas did. Alternatively, I want to be double board certified, and I have already banked my credentials with ASPPB as an early entry applicant. I literally just need to complete this year of work experience as a GS-12 to qualify for ABPP in clinical psychology. So in sum, I have found that not completing a formal post-doc has not hindered me or made it more difficult to attain multiple licenses and PsyPact, but that's just me.

OP, this is the key here. Without this, all of these things would be MUCH harder.

 

[AcronymAllergy]

OP, this is the key here. Without this, all of these things would be MUCH harder.

I was going to say the same. If you go the GS-11 route (which works just fine for many people) and want to be license-eligible in other states, you'll just want to be absolutely sure that you secure and document regular supervision. Most states I've seen require somewhere between 1 and 4 hours weekly.

The biggest benefits to a formal postdoc are the ability to still focus on additional, advanced training and acquiring whatever new skills or experiences you may want to develop, the (theoretical) protection afforded by having a formal grievance process and other such procedures in place, potential for participating in didactics, and overall, the prioritization of your training activities over service provision. This can all go out the window with an informal postdoc, which in some instances can be almost indistinguishable from something akin to a GS-11 position.

 

[texanpsychdoc]

OP - I echo what AA and Wise mentioned, the documenting part is very important. I went through at least 2 hours of individual supervision a week, and for about 4 months, I had an hour of group supervision with the other GS-11 and unlicensed GS-12s that were hired with me. Additionally, if you elect to go the GS-11 route, you can bank your credentials with ASPPB, then all you need to do is have your supervisor attest to the supervision you received while a GS-11 staff psychologist. Typically, the ASPPB post-doc form will ask you what your role and responsibilities were, how many F2F hours a week/year you did, how much individual and group supervision you did, the name and credentials of your supervisor. Once that stuff is banked, then you can send that info to any state licensing board you wish to be licensed in. This way you don't have to worry about tracking down your supervisor 5-10 years ago to get them to remember the stuff you did as a GS-11 psychologist.

Alternatively, and likely anecdotally, I remember when I was a GS-11, I asked my supervisor who was also the chief at that VA if there was much of a difference between what I was doing in terms of experiences vs. that of a (generalist) post-doc, and his opinion was there really wasn't much of a difference. I think you get some protected time for didactics and standard supervision. In fact, I actually interviewed for many post-docs (had some offers), but one place I interviewed at for post-doc was with another large VA in Ohio who had a generalist program; I was offered my GS-11 position while I was still waiting for a decision from that post-doc site - I reached out to that director and told him about my offer in an effort to see if he could disclose where I stood in the process. He advised me "I will always advocate my trainees to take a GS-11 over our post-doc; you get practical experience right out the gate, and much better pay than the post-doc." Again, this is likely anecdotal, but just wanted to shine some light on factors that influenced my decision back then.

 

[cara susanna]

My VA post doc allowed me to get the specialty training that I wanted, in a city I loved, at a facility with a great reputation. I learned so much and had such a great experience. Although I am no longer at that facility, I formed connections there which still are helpful today. It also helped me transition from being a trainee to a licensed psychologist--by the end, I finally felt like I was ready for independent practice.

I should add that I did a research post doc but ended up foregoing attempting a VA research career, so since fellowship I've only had clinical VA positions.

 

[WisNeuro]

As another aside, if you want a specialty practice area, even if you do not want ABPP, many jobs will not credential you for those services without the appropriate postdoc experiences, or documentation of equivalency. For example, in my last two hospital system jobs, you would not be cleared for neuropsych services by the hospital privileges board unless you were at least board eligible.

 

[texanpsychdoc]

As another aside, if you want a specialty practice area, even if you do not want ABPP, many jobs will not credential you for those services without the appropriate postdoc experiences, or documentation of equivalency. For example, in my last two hospital system jobs, you would not be cleared for neuropsych services by the hospital privileges board unless you were at least board eligible.

Indeed - what's interesting is, I was approved and privileged for neuropsych testing at my previous VA, but at my current VA I was approved for neuro screening, not assessment.

 

[WisNeuro]

Indeed - what's interesting is, I was approved and privileged for neuropsych testing at my previous VA, but at my current VA I was approved for neuro screening, not assessment.

Was the previous in a hard to recruit area? ALl of my VAs only privileged board eligible people, including your current VA. But these were all in larger VA hospitals.

 

[texanpsychdoc]

Was the previous in a hard to recruit area? ALl of my VAs only privileged board eligible people, including your current VA. But these were all in larger VA hospitals.

In my opinion , I don't think so. In fact, we had two neuropsychologists, both fellowship trained, and one was ABPP while the other was working on ABPP. I guess if one or both of them were unable to see folks, I could have been a backup? lol I am unsure. I never received clarification from my chief when I asked him how that would look like if there would be a scenario where I would be able to do NP testing. Perhaps they were cool with me doing NP testing that was not necessarily answering a direct NP question. IDK.