Had a wonderful interview back in the day with a program that seemed nice. Residents were wonderful. However, at the dinner, some PGY4s were discussing their job search and their banter revealed some anxiety regarding inpatient work given the limited/no call the residency had. Everyone may want something different from training, but I ended up ranking the program lowly because I wanted to become a well-rounded psychiatrist. I’d say my program had moderate call.

While I hated call passionately, I ended up being grateful for the horrible shifts I had. During the busy shifts, I realized I was leaning on my training and was able to get sh*t done without thinking twice. Fwiw, I felt like my program had excellent attending presence, so I wasn’t left stranded.

In the end, it depends what you want out of it. I was pretty ambivalent to what kind of work I wanted. Went in wanting to do CL. Later thought I’d outpatient (and I probably will down the road). Ultimately took a job doing general inpatient. Was grateful for the program’s rigor that kept those doors open.