What are my chances..

[psychorno]

I can't find the answer to this on the internet so I am gonna ask here..

Since my first psych rotation in medical school I have been wanting to do psych. I did many electives, externships, observerships and applied in psych two consecutive years and did not match. In the third year due to pressure of not being able to match anywhere else, I also applied to FM, IM and peds. I matched into Peds for this year. It is an exciting residency but there's no way I will ever be happy with this as my life long career.

I want to apply for PGY-1 positions for psychiatry again for match 2022. Is this a good idea? Are my chances worse now that they'll see me as a pediatric resident?

Can someone please give some insight, I don't know what to do.

Thank you for reading

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[GoSpursGo]

Are my chances worse now that they'll see me as a pediatric resident?

That's the wrong question. The question you need to answer is, "what has changed in the last 2 years that will actually make my chances BETTER?" Because simply being "not worse" isn't good enough. After two years of trying your best, I think you got a resounding answer on whether you were competitive for psych. Now that you will have 1+ years of experience which is unrelated to psych, I'm not sure why you would risk the residency that you actually matched at to pursue a path that has been unsuccessful twice now.

I think I would explore two other options before re-entering the match: 1) can you find a spot outside of the match, either at your current institution or somewhere else, where you wouldn't have to go through the entire ERAS process and risk your peds spot? 2) As of a few years ago when I completed my residency, there were a small number of peds psych fellowships which include a year of adult psych and result in you being eligible for triple boards at the end (gen peds, psych, and child psych). My understanding is that these may be vanishing as child psych becomes its own combined residency program, but it might be worth exploring.

 

[NotAProgDirector]

In addition to the above excellent advice, the best plan going forward is to finish your peds residency and then apply for Psych again. That way, you have a career no matter what happens. Use some of your elective time in Peds to do pedi psych rotations. You might be able to build a career managing pedi patients with mixed medical/psych issues if a full psych residency doesn't happen.

 

[hamstergang]

2) As of a few years ago when I completed my residency, there were a small number of peds psych fellowships which include a year of adult psych and result in you being eligible for triple boards at the end (gen peds, psych, and child psych). My understanding is that these may be vanishing as child psych becomes its own combined residency program, but it might be worth exploring.

It's called the Post Pediatric Portal Program: Post Pediatric Portal Programs

I know nothing about it other than its existence. It seems OP's best bet now, regardless of the future, is to focus on being the best peds resident they can be. Focusing too hard on getting out makes it harder to actually do so.

 

[mvenus929]

If you're okay doing child psych, then doing psych after peds residency (as above) is probably your best bet. There is a DIRE need for child psychiatrists, so even if you didn't ultimately do a full residency, you could certainly build a general peds practice to focus on mental health issues (depending on your interests, eating disorders, mood disorders, ADHD, etc).