What's more competitive psych or IM

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Mad Jack said:
I hope psych stays uncompetitive- it's a great blend of lifestyle and pay, with a relatively relaxed residency to bit at many institutions.
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I freakin hope so too. Maybe during 3rd year I'll decide on something else, but if I had to decide today I'd do psych and I worry the competitiveness will ramp up in the next couple years
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Mad Jack said:
I hope psych stays uncompetitive- it's a great blend of lifestyle and pay, with a relatively relaxed residency to bit at many institutions.
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It will, I told a few classmates I was interested in psych and they said "eww why"- both girls, btw. American MD students are some of the most arrogant little pricks, until they get their step 1 scores back anyway.
 
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olivarynucleus said:
It will, I told a few classmates I was interested in psych and they said "eww why"- both girls, btw. American MD students are some of the most arrogant little pricks, until they get their step 1 scores back anyway.
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Not to this extreme, but I've seen this attitude as well.

As much as I worry about psych getting more competitive, I really think there are enough people in medical school who scoff at psych because they would rather do "real medicine." Or if I had a nickel for every bruh that wanted to do ortho at my school, I'd have a **** ton of nickels
 
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But srs guys, I'm interested in psych. Are higher ranked pysch residencies really competitive?
 
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olivarynucleus said:
It will, I told a few classmates I was interested in psych and they said "eww why"- both girls, btw. American MD students are some of the most arrogant little pricks, until they get their step 1 scores back anyway.
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Bahaha, good. I don't give a damn about the opinions of others, so the more of them that feel psych is beneath them, the better.
 
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TheShaker said:
But srs guys, I'm interested in psych. Are higher ranked pysch residencies really competitive?
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Yes. Yale is one of the super competitive ones that comes to mind- they don't take DOs and have extremely high Step score requirements that are on par with some of the better IM programs.
 
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Mad Jack said:
EM was never really a lifestyle specialty, as many that jumped on the EM train are quickly finding out. Psych truly is- minimal call, no nights, no weekends, no holidays, with pay over 200k and style of the best opportunities to avoid the government's destruction of the health insurance industry and EMR requirements in all of medicine. Eventually people might catch on and competitiveness might increase, but I certainly hope not before I match.
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A long time ago back in the Late Cretaceous period, I was deciding between dentistry and psychiatry (I knew EM sounded too good to be true). I felt I dont exactly have a certain type of thick skin that many psychiatrists are required to have in order to go through this career. But if I did, I cannot think of a better job in the US of A right now

-"saturated cities" still have numerous positions
-$200k salary, more than enough to get by and fund two children's college tuition
- 40 hour weeks (more time to have fun in bed)
-helping people
-good camaraderie (any prospective psychiatrist in med school should check out the psychiatry sub-forum, its really helpful)
-even going to a less competitive psych residency still opens a lot of job openings
 
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jeffk805dent said:
A long time ago back in the Late Cretaceous period, I was deciding between dentistry and psychiatry (I knew EM sounded too good to be true). I felt I dont exactly have a certain type of thick skin that many psychiatrists are required to have in order to go through this career. But if I did, I cannot think of a better job in the US of A right now

-"saturated cities" still have numerous positions
-$200k salary, more than enough to get by and fund two children's college tuition
- 40 hour weeks (more time to have fun in bed)
-helping people
-good camaraderie (any prospective psychiatrist in med school should check out the psychiatry sub-forum, its really helpful)
-even going to a less competitive psych residency still opens a lot of job openings
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200k is low
 
I think I'll use Yale as my ultimate reach school, then again, step1 scores at top 10% of psychiatry schools is only around 235. Source= charting outcomes. Everybody there probably has 20 First author publications or something though.
 
J DUB said:
I know Emory has all MDs and they all had first author pubs.

Don't care for ATL traffic anyway. I rather live by the coast.
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off topic but how difficult is to get a first author publication?
 
Mad Jack said:
You're more likely to just end up in a low end IM sweatshop than be forced into psych. Plus most people who like IM would likely be more apt to go the FM route before the psych route, as IM and FM provide many of the same opportunities for those without a fellowship.
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Not sure how you'd be "forced" into psych, even if it is the "least competitive." There are still very few SOAP/Scramble spots every year.

Plus you kinda gotta really want to do psych to put up with it. I know more than a few med school classmates who'd rather work in said sweatshop than do my job.
 
WingedOx said:
Not sure how you'd be "forced" into psych, even if it is the "least competitive." There are still very few SOAP/Scramble spots every year.

Plus you kinda gotta really want to do psych to put up with it. I know more than a few med school classmates who'd rather work in said sweatshop than do my job.
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That's what I'm saying- there's just so many options to not do psych, you can't really be forced into it. It's kind of one of those fields where you can do it or you can't, and the number of people that can't is enormous.
 
Guys, every medical student rotates through psych. It's not a secret. It's not going to "get discovered". People that like psychiatric patients go into psych, and people that don't don't. This isn't going to change. Relax.
 
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Frazier said:
If the ~1,300 psych spots were widdled down to only 180 available spots (a la radonc), the former would be just as competitive if not more than the latter (assuming psych programs would shift their M.O. and have an interest in more heavily weighing step scores). There are a ton more spots because there is a much higher need for a voluminous supply of psychiatrists than radiation oncologists. Not saying the utility of one is higher than the other, but rather more are simply needed of the former.
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It has nothing to do with psych programs shifting their MO, their applicants arent that competitive. How about we actually look at some numbers available to us on charting outcomes in the match 2014?

Of the american applicants, if you take the top 180 psych applicants, they have already dropped into the 230s Step 1 score, basically the average for IM. If you go just a little farther into the "top 200" applicants the scores have already dropped into the 220s, well below the average step 1 score of IM.

Compare that to the top 200 US IM applicants which haven't even broken into half of the applicants who score in the 250s.

The number of psych applicants who scored above the 230s is less than number of IM applicants who scored 260 or above.

Hell almost 1 out of 5 psych applicants scored 200 or less! About 5% of IM applicants scored that low...

Tihs isn't really to detract from pscyh but just to point out that IM is competitive at the top.
 
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Instatewaiter said:
It has nothing to do with psych programs shifting their MO, their applicants arent that competitive. How about we actually look at some numbers available to us on charting outcomes in the match 2014?

Of the american applicants, if you take the top 180 psych applicants, they have already dropped into the 230s Step 1 score, basically the average for IM. If you go just a little farther into the "top 200" applicants the scores have already dropped into the 220s, well below the average step 1 score of IM.

Compare that to the top 200 US IM applicants which haven't even broken into half of the applicants who score in the 250s.

The number of psych applicants who scored above the 230s is less than number of IM applicants who scored 260 or above.

Hell almost 1 out of 5 psych applicants scored 200 or less! About 5% of IM applicants scored that low...

Tihs isn't really to detract from pscyh but just to point out that IM is competitive at the top.
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The post (and specifically excerpt) you quoted wasn't even talking about IM lol... In that regard, your post is in vain, as it was in no way actually responding to mine.
 
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Instatewaiter said:
It has nothing to do with psych programs shifting their MO, their applicants arent that competitive. How about we actually look at some numbers available to us on charting outcomes in the match 2014?

Of the american applicants, if you take the top 180 psych applicants, they have already dropped into the 230s Step 1 score, basically the average for IM. If you go just a little farther into the "top 200" applicants the scores have already dropped into the 220s, well below the average step 1 score of IM.

Compare that to the top 200 US IM applicants which haven't even broken into half of the applicants who score in the 250s.

The number of psych applicants who scored above the 230s is less than number of IM applicants who scored 260 or above.

Hell almost 1 out of 5 psych applicants scored 200 or less! About 5% of IM applicants scored that low...

Tihs isn't really to detract from pscyh but just to point out that IM is competitive at the top.
Click to expand...

Informative post, thank you for that.
 
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