Why no DO FAQ in stickies

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Dharma

Dharma

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Just wanted to bring this up again since there has been no movement on this front. Considering there will be a decent number of DO students with an interest in psych cruising through this forum, a DO FAQ (provided in the link below) should be included in the stickies. This will make it a lot easier for prospects to find the answers they are looking for without asking the same questions ad nauseum.

Hopefully the moderators can jump on this. There is absolutely no reason the DO FAQ should not be included in the stickies along with the others (including the IMG FAQ).

Thanks all. Have a good one.

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/faqs-for-dos-interested-in-psychiatry-residency.992027/
 
My opinion: Most of that link involves advice that would benefit both MD's and DO's. Any US medical school will have advisors providing this information though. The DO schools in my region actually have really good advisors that would clear simple questions as these right up. If a certain school does not have this available somewhere after looking extensively, a lot of complaining and reporting needs to be done. A lot. In my region, most DO's are on par with MD's when all else is equal. The few program directors in psychiatry I know do not bias against DO's in psychiatry.

The information in that post that would be unique to DO's is not psychiatric specific. I was unaware of those 4 states affecting DO's, but I believe all DO's need this information.

All medical school applicants should give extra focus to personal statements and the CV. All should maximize their scores. All should apply to more programs than they think they need to guarantee a match.

Take out the couple psychiatric pieces of that post, and this may be a good sticky on the osteopathic forum.

While I did not sticky the IMG thread, there is clearly a huge discrepancy here in advisors, information, and competition. Program directors in my region are actually being told by administrators to stop taking IMG/FMG applicants regardless of quality at some institutions.

IMG/FMG's need lots of education to stand a chance in an increasingly difficult climate.

If DO's are not being provided this information, osteopathic schools need to be changing things on a school level.

I also believe our stickies need updating and fewer stickies should be present, so maybe I am the wrong person to ask. 🙂

I am not questioning the quality of the information in the post, but I don't believe it's psychiatric relevance is there for this forum. All osteopaths should be reading/hearing that information at some point.
 
Actually I believe the majority of us DO's don't have really good advisors when it comes to applying to residency. Especially when it comes to ACGME. Things probably should be changed but unfortunately there really isn't enough oversight for the non-state DO run schools (which is >95% of them). My school loves to just hit us over the head with data and charts with it's students and how successful they are in the ACGME match instead of helping us figure out the few things we may need to focus on to help us bridge the gap that may exist in some programs in regards to DO-->US MD.
 
If there's a FAQ sticky. And one for FMG's. It seems reasonable to be one for DO's, there are definitely different strategic pressures in their application process.

We could combine a lot of those stickies to make room in the screen space of the forum itself while allowing a reference point for DO applicants.

Not advocating for more work on our volunteer mods but if its easy enough to do then it seems like a good idea.
 
Program directors in my region are actually being told by administrators to stop taking IMG/FMG applicants regardless of quality at some institutions.
Click to expand...

Can you tell us a bit about the reasoning behind this?
 
People seem to use the term "sticky" to mean "great thread." When a great thread has lots of valuable information to be used and re-used, you consider making it a sticky. Talk of creating a sticky and waiting for the fantastic content to arrive is kind of putting the cart before the horse.

When this thread contains a lot of information so valuable that it should pretty much forever show up at the top of the page for all visitors to the forum, we can consider making it a sticky. Making it in to one now just because we lack one doesn't make a lot of sense....


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Jorje286 said:
Can you tell us a bit about the reasoning behind this?
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Administrator looks at match results:
“What is wrong with family medicine and psychiatry? None of our other specialties have to take IMGs or D.O.s”.

Program Director for Family or Psych:
“Gee, I get better residents when I broaden the pool.”

Administrator:
“I don’t care; students pay attention to these things and it makes us look bad. Don’t do it.”
 
Nasrudin said:
Not this thread NDY but this one:

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/faqs-for-dos-interested-in-psychiatry-residency.992027/
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Ah ha, thanks Nasrudin.

It makes sense to start a sticky with links to helpful threads for getting into a U.S. Allopathic psych residency as a non-U.S. Allopath. You could provide a list of helpful links divided by foreign MDs looking for U.S. psych residency training, Americans who went to medical school internationally looking to return, and osteopaths.

When you create a sticky like that, with links to multiple helpful threads, it keeps it mean and lean and as more threads pop up, a link can be elegantly added to the sticky. That's much more helpful than a growing list of specific stickies that are constantly growing in size and becoming less helpful to the viewer and a UI killer for everyone else...


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notdeadyet said:
Ah ha, thanks Nasrudin.

It makes sense to start a sticky with links to helpful threads for getting into a U.S. Allopathic psych residency as a non-U.S. Allopath. You could provide a list of helpful links divided by foreign MDs looking for U.S. psych residency training, Americans who went to medical school internationally looking to return, and osteopaths.

When you create a sticky like that, with links to multiple helpful threads, it keeps it mean and lean and as more threads pop up, a link can be elegantly added to the sticky. That's much more helpful than a growing list of specific stickies that are constantly growing in size and becoming less helpful to the viewer and a UI killer for everyone else...


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Click to expand...

Ok I can do that. PM me any suggestions DO's or IMG's and I'll put it together sometime this week.
 
MacDonaldTriad said:
Administrator looks at match results:
“What is wrong with family medicine and psychiatry? None of our other specialties have to take IMGs or D.O.s”.

Program Director for Family or Psych:
“Gee, I get better residents when I broaden the pool.”

Administrator:
“I don’t care; students pay attention to these things and it makes us look bad. Don’t do it.”
Click to expand...

Not the issue. As US medical students are growing in number, residency slots are not. Politics is getting involved. States and federal powers want to train our own and keep them. Some facilities are being told by admin to only take US MD/DO's. Less competitive programs at these places are in a bind as they are pushed to take less qualified US applicants. There is a push to get all US graduates matched as the #1 priority. Public schools are subsidized and not matching is a poor investment for the government.
 
TexasPhysician said:
Not the issue. As US medical students are growing in number, residency slots are not. Politics is getting involved. States and federal powers want to train our own and keep them. Some facilities are being told by admin to only take US MD/DO's. Less competitive programs at these places are in a bind as they are pushed to take less qualified US applicants. There is a push to get all US graduates matched as the #1 priority. Public schools are subsidized and not matching is a poor investment for the government.
Click to expand...

I can see both sides of this. The FMG/IMG talent pool is amazing and it would be shame to deprive our citizens of access to that talent in the name of giving every lazy poor-performing medical graduate a job. But my experience with FMG psychiatrists has been dichotomous--truly remarkable and completely unconscionable. I've been lucky to have some as mentors and some have scared the piss out of me for the sake our field itself.

There is also the public investment of resources in an American grad that needs a return at stake.

If I was a PD I would want access to that talent though. It's a shame we might get less of it.
 
Just a heads up, but the term "osteopath" is a bit antiquated. Not too many D.O.'s are rolling around calling themselves that anymore, besides the really hardcore OMM subset and they are an interesting group indeed (<5% practicing D.O.s).

As for the need for some type of advice tailored for D.O. students in particular…

Up until this point, just about the only useful information for D.O. students in this forum has been the FAQ list created by @purple rain (in the link provided in the first post). Taking into consideration that we have a unique set of obstacles that we have to deal with as compared to the IMG/FMG student, advice is not standard across the board, e.g. the COMLEX, the dilemma of whether or not to take the USMLE, which places want us to take it, which don't care, which places are open D.O.'s, which aren't, information about D.O. programs, etc.

For D.O. students looking for a bit of guidance (which as @MLT2MT2DO stated is NOT being offered at some of our institutions) a sticky dedicated to help out D.O. students would be useful and help this forum serve its purpose.
 
TexasPhysician said:
Not the issue. As US medical students are growing in number, residency slots are not. Politics is getting involved. States and federal powers want to train our own and keep them. Some facilities are being told by admin to only take US MD/DO's. Less competitive programs at these places are in a bind as they are pushed to take less qualified US applicants. There is a push to get all US graduates matched as the #1 priority. Public schools are subsidized and not matching is a poor investment for the government.
Click to expand...

And taking poorly performing USMGs is?

A PD who I greatly respect told me that he thinks the answer is to start actually failing med students--tell them the truth (preferably early on, before their debt reaches impossible heights) that they're poorly suited to perform in residency, instead of nursing them through the curriculum in response to these vague "political" concerns.

Also, the way you phrase your comment makes it sound like a lot of "They" is involved here--"politics", "powers", "admin", "a push".
Cites please?
 
Like Beetlejuice, I sense I have been summoned from the netherworld of intern year. I am so glad that the information in the FAQ has been helpful to fellow DOs going through the match process. I will reiterate that it was a combined effort from myself, Dr. Toaster, and several other DOs in the community.

My motivation behind putting the FAQ together was my application/match experience. I had to figure out the process without help from my school. There were no psychiatrists on faculty to call programs on my behalf, no deans to sit me down and explain how the match works, no faculty advisor to give me even the most basic of information on programs out there and where I might consider applying.

Through luck and the kindness of strangers (mostly on SDN) I managed to scrape together a general sense of what to do and matched at an outstanding program. Some of my fellow medical students were not so fortunate, even with stronger applications than me, because they had bad advice about how to go about the application process.

Sure, a lot of the information is true for any medical student (DO, IMG, US MD), and a lot of it is true for any specialty, but I posted the FAQ here because this is the forum I'm active on. Unfortunately DO students don't have access to what may seem like basic information about how the match works, and I wanted to lay out the simple stuff, and leave room for more in-depth questions to be raised.

Whether it should be a sticky or not- I'll leave that to the mods, I hate scrolling as much as the next person, plus I already matched so I don't need to look at that crap every day. A combo thread about matching into psychiatry residency including links to the IMG and DO FAQ, as well as maybe the past few years of interview reviews, the "how to research programs of interest" and any other match related threads could be really cool- a one stop shop for the 4th year med students collectively freaking out.
 
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OldPsychDoc said:
A PD who I greatly respect told me that he thinks the answer is to start actually failing med students--tell them the truth (preferably early on, before their debt reaches impossible heights) that they're poorly suited to perform in residency, instead of nursing them through the curriculum in response to these vague "political" concerns.
Click to expand...
Agreed and amen. There is a general sense of entitlement that permeates this whole process. I have a hunch some of it comes from the socioeconomic demographic that tends to make it into medical school, but the medical school education process is a big part of it. Med schools are incented to pass anyone that walks through their doors, then when a sometimes unsuspecting residency lucks into one of them, they are stuck as there's ridiculous blow-back for firing them.

I find it odd that for an industry in which we are literally responsible for people's lives, we seem to cling to the idea that you need to more or less kill a body to get flunked out of your training. I understand that big loans are taken out, but folks take out hefty loans for all sorts of training (law, comes to mind) and if you can't perform, you are out. Why not medicine? I would think that whittling down those not meant for medicine and offering loan forgiveness would end up being cheaper than the alternative.

Were I a PD, I would be much more inclined to take a stellar IMG with a compelling background than someone who barely scraped through medical school and is a poor clinician. I realize it's an unpopular viewpoint but it makes more sense when viewed from the perspective of patient care.
 
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OldPsychDoc said:
And taking poorly performing USMGs is?

A PD who I greatly respect told me that he thinks the answer is to start actually failing med students--tell them the truth (preferably early on, before their debt reaches impossible heights) that they're poorly suited to perform in residency, instead of nursing them through the curriculum in response to these vague "political" concerns.

Also, the way you phrase your comment makes it sound like a lot of "They" is involved here--"politics", "powers", "admin", "a push".
Cites please?
Click to expand...

As nothing is truly anonymous, being more specific could expose where the information is from. For that reason, I used very non-specific terms.

My source is anonymous program directors discussing being not pleased about having options restricted. Not something you announce from rooftops.
 
purple rain said:
Like Beetlejuice, I sense I have been summoned from the netherworld of intern year. I am so glad that the information in the FAQ has been helpful to fellow DOs going through the match process. I will reiterate that it was a combined effort from myself, Dr. Toaster, and several other DOs in the community.

My motivation behind putting the FAQ together was my application/match experience. I had to figure out the process without help from my school. There were no psychiatrists on faculty to call programs on my behalf, no deans to sit me down and explain how the match works, no faculty advisor to give me even the most basic of information on programs out there and where I might consider applying.

Through luck and the kindness of strangers (mostly on SDN) I managed to scrape together a general sense of what to do and matched at an outstanding program. Some of my fellow medical students were not so fortunate, even with stronger applications than me, because they had bad advice about how to go about the application process.

Sure, a lot of the information is true for any medical student (DO, IMG, US MD), and a lot of it is true for any specialty, but I posted the FAQ here because this is the forum I'm active on. Unfortunately DO students don't have access to what may seem like basic information about how the match works, and I wanted to lay out the simple stuff, and leave room for more in-depth questions to be raised.

Whether it should be a sticky or not- I'll leave that to the mods, I hate scrolling as much as the next person, plus I already matched so I don't need to look at that crap every day. A combo thread about matching into psychiatry residency including links to the IMG and DO FAQ, as well as maybe the past few years of interview reviews, the "how to research programs of interest" and any other match related threads could be really cool- a one stop shop for the 4th year med students collectively freaking out.
Click to expand...

So what would you like me to put together? We have your thread. Do I just post in that with whatever I can find here in the archives pertaining to the topic or do I start from the top and link your thread first and then on down with whatever else I can find?

Seems like NDY just wanted something clean.

And I think Splik pretty much blanketed the topic for IMG's.

So....how would you like it played sir. I'm the 4th year with the time on my hands.
 
TexasPhysician said:
Not the issue. As US medical students are growing in number, residency slots are not. Politics is getting involved. States and federal powers want to train our own and keep them. Some facilities are being told by admin to only take US MD/DO's. Less competitive programs at these places are in a bind as they are pushed to take less qualified US applicants. There is a push to get all US graduates matched as the #1 priority. Public schools are subsidized and not matching is a poor investment for the government.
Click to expand...

That's what I exactly thought and I mentioned this in another thread.
 
notdeadyet said:
Ah ha, thanks Nasrudin.

It makes sense to start a sticky with links to helpful threads for getting into a U.S. Allopathic psych residency as a non-U.S. Allopath. You could provide a list of helpful links divided by foreign MDs looking for U.S. psych residency training, Americans who went to medical school internationally looking to return, and osteopaths.

When you create a sticky like that, with links to multiple helpful threads, it keeps it mean and lean and as more threads pop up, a link can be elegantly added to the sticky. That's much more helpful than a growing list of specific stickies that are constantly growing in size and becoming less helpful to the viewer and a UI killer for everyone else...


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Click to expand...

What sort of organizing can I do for you. It seems like there's a lot of reference oriented threads that could be combined to reduce the the screen space of the stickies to make room for a DO sticky. Anasazi's and splick's threads could be unified into a psych reference resource thread...or something like that...

Otherwise I could just do exhaustive searches on DO psych topics and post them in the Purple rain thread. But then we'll still have the UI issue.
 
Nasrudin said:
I'm the 4th year with the time on my hands.
Click to expand...

How do you feel about coming to help me move next weekend?

A potential approach would be to have an "Applying to Psychiatry Residency" sticky- much like there is a sticky for fellowship, and for board certification. Within this heading there would be a general opening "congrats on your wise decision to apply for psychiatry residency, here is a compilation of useful threads and information..." Then links to:

general info:
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/applicants-how-to-research-programs-of-interest.807518/

FAQs:
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/thr...to-match-into-top-psychiatry-programs.897562/
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/faqs-for-dos-interested-in-psychiatry-residency.992027/

interview reviews:
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/index.php?threads/2012-2013-psych-interview-reviews.957418/
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/2013-2014-psychiatry-interview-reviews.1040145/

maybe splik's old threads about top 10 programs and programs to avoid (even if they weren't entirely serious they are still informative)

plus any other sort of general psych match type threads that cover new ground, even links to any articles that are really useful, though none are coming to mind at the moment.

Ultimately I think a sticky like that would be a mod decision, so I'd wait for their approval before putting anything together, it would condense the stickies section though! Yay efficiency.
 
These are great ideas. Something like purple rain's suggestion could also include a For IMGs and For DOs with links to specific threads there too.

I'd err on the side of underinclusion rather than over. The whole point of a sticky is that it's a concise list of high quality stuff, not a link to every thread that discusses the topic at hand.
 
purple rain said:
Incidentally, while I don't mind being addressed as sir, I am in fact a lady, who enjoys ladies' things.
Click to expand...

:laugh: Whoops. Sorry. idk what it says about me that I assume everyone is a man until they explicitly are not but...there it is.

OK then. So I'll take your rubric above. I'll fill it out and submit to NDY. Then he can post it as a sticky with any changes. And if anyone else want to see my rough draft before I submit it to him just say so here.
 
Actually better yet. I'll post it here for discussion. And when it's ready a mod can make it a thread and then a sticky. Open source style.
 
I wonder if it might be appropriate to make an addendum to the sticky along the lines of:

this is not intended to be a "what are my chances" thread, but rather a list of high yield information about the application and matching process. any such comments will be deleted/ignored.

aka- personal problems will be addressed after class.
 
purple rain said:
Through luck and the kindness of strangers (mostly on SDN) I managed to scrape together a general sense of what to do and matched at an outstanding program.
Click to expand...

This was my experience also. I matched into an awesome program - thanks to this forum. Had it not been for this forum, I likely would not have even applied ACGME psych, as my academic advisor told me that I would not be eligible for allopathic psychiatry programs with only the COMLEX (which was not true).
 
Just a suggestion, but I think that addressing the merger would be great in a FAQ thread.
 
rkaz said:
This was my experience also. I matched into an awesome program - thanks to this forum. Had it not been for this forum, I likely would not have even applied ACGME psych, as my academic advisor told me that I would not be eligible for allopathic psychiatry programs with only the COMLEX (which was not true).
Click to expand...

If that is the case, it would benefit future applicants at your program to address this with administration repeatedly. Advisors should be fired for providing that poor of information.
 
TexasPhysician said:
If that is the case, it would benefit future applicants at your program to address this with administration repeatedly. Advisors should be fired for providing that poor of information.
Click to expand...
What if it's an administration that is often met with resistance? I'd like to say it would help to address the issue, but there are a number of specialities that are not given much consideration, unless it pertains directly to primary care. This forum is like the Obi Wan to the Leia's of the student D.O. world … our only hope.
 
OldPsychDoc said:
It was hard to tell with Prince sometimes, too. 😉
Click to expand...

I went to a Stones concert in 1981. There was an unknown “Prince” trying to warm up the crowd. Really a bad choice of demographic because the hells angels/bicker crowd wasn’t into his choice of G string and cape attire. Everything not tied down when flying at the stage and a quart of orange juice shorted out an amp. The artist formerly known as Prince made a hasty get away encouraged by much applause. George Thorogood came out and confidently told us that we would like what he was dishing out. He said his albums are so so, but his live performances are great. He was good. And yes, Keith Richards looked old back then, or at least we thought so.
 
TexasPhysician said:
If that is the case, it would benefit future applicants at your program to address this with administration repeatedly. Advisors should be fired for providing that poor of information.
Click to expand...

Many of us learned early on that trying to talk to administration only made matters worse, as those who spoke up were deemed problem students. If there were concerns, it became better to commiserate with other students, or (in some cases) discuss the issue with our preceptors instead of going to our administration. Sadly, the best way to get through medical school was to be as unnoticed as possible.
 
notdeadyet said:
It makes sense to start a sticky with links to helpful threads for getting into a U.S. Allopathic psych residency as a non-U.S. Allopath. You could provide a list of helpful links divided by foreign MDs looking for U.S. psych residency training, Americans who went to medical school internationally looking to return, and osteopaths. When you create a sticky like that, with links to multiple helpful threads, it keeps it mean and lean and as more threads pop up, a link can be elegantly added to the sticky. That's much more helpful than a growing list of specific stickies that are constantly growing in size and becoming less helpful to the viewer and a UI killer for everyone else...
Click to expand...

Having been a moderator at more than a few forums in the past, I can totally understand the need to keep the UI streamlined, especially for mobile browsers. And although XenForo negates the problem a little by not showing read stickies on mobile browsers if one's signed it, it is far more desirable to eliminate the problem altogether. So, I'm in. I have a few more free days from my canceled vacation and I've liked being a part of this forum far so I can definitely help organize this mini-project of sorts. First question: will this new/reference thread replace only the threads started by notdeadyet and splik in the sticky section or would it replace all but the board certification and fellowship threads?
 
Personally, I wouldn't recommend collapsing all, just combining like with like and using stickies as they typically are, which is short bundles of good info and/or lists of links. They shouldn't be active, growing threads or they are too laborious to pour through.

Multiple stickies for key articles, books, websites makes less sense than one sticky. Multiple stickies for tips for DOs, IMGs, or FMGs makes less sense than a single one that highlights the differences (as there seems to be a lot of cross over). The fellowship stickies and the like seem sufficiently unique, IMHO.
 
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^^^^This is the FAQ sticky skeleton. Post in whatever threads you want. I'm working on a sticky called Applying to Psychiatry Residency which will start of with NDY's thread on how to research programs and include as many of the review threads I can find. Thankfully already collected by Dig.

Change however you see fit.

After I finish the application one I'll try to collect all the reference thread links into one post. But some of these are stickies already so I'm no sure how those redirects will work when stickied again and changed?
 
 
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slappy said:
It's done folks. Check it out here: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/thr...-applying-for-a-psychiatry-residency.1066849/
Click to expand...
Your efforts are admirable but yours looks WAY too long, slappy, and seems to include links to just about everything, which defeats the purpose of a sticky. It should just link to Greatest Hits level stuff.

The idea of Stickies is to have somewhere to point new users when they have questions that have been addressed ad nauseum. I'm sure the Mods will weigh in, but something shorter and more user friendly like Nasrudin's would get my vote if I were asked...
 
I figured I'd include all the threads that provided useful information under all the topics a new applicant is going to have questions in so they can read the threads that interest them and have most (or all) of their questions answered. A comprehensive approach, if you may. You can also edit the first post and include a "Best Of" or "Must Read" list at the top. Or go with a completely different approach, whichever is the consensus. The issue with having a "only greatest hits" approach are of course subjectivity in selecting those threads with the consequent risk of a lot of good information getting passed over for more sensationalist ones.
 
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Holy crap slappy that's an amazing resource you created!

I could spend a couple days reading through it.

Well...we have to figure out a way to use your work here. Even if we go with something more skeletal we should sticky your work somehow. Or break it down into separate links. Kind of like how Splik broke down his articles by subject. We could create separate links in a simpler sticky to link your more encyclopedic work.
 
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Slappy,

How about posting something at the bottom of your thread saying something about not posting in it. That way it can be added as a sticky or a series of stickies without junk in it.
 
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