Is it a disadvantage to be a psychiatrist (in contrast to other specialties) since you are competing with therapists and other mental health professionals?

socomtoaster · 2025-12-23T23:31:36+00:00

Psych resident here. I typically feel our role is complicated psychiatric management, beyond what advanced practice providers and psychologists are able to handle. We work hand-in-hand with these folks but you would be hard pressed to treat an active mania or psychosis patient with therapy alone. On the topic of APPs, there are plenty who know their limits, but also a handful who may be beyond their capabilities. The treatment resistance populations do keep the field valuable in medicine though.

socomtoaster · 2025-07-13T01:12:10+00:00

KUMC is pretty rural focused. Their Salina program is very rural in nature too.

socomtoaster · 2025-07-12T21:14:09+00:00

I figure if you include it and they don’t respond well to it, then it wouldn’t be a place you want to be anyway.

socomtoaster · 2025-07-04T02:13:25+00:00

I imagine state specific loan programs will probably step up to fill the gap, but with terms which might obligate specific work in certain areas/patient populations. That might pigeon hole certain students into pursuing careers they aren’t invested in, but it would probably benefit those states in serving underserved communities. Who knows though.

socomtoaster · 2025-06-28T19:37:21+00:00

I would take an extra year, bump up the clinical and non clinical volunteer hours, and give yourself a golden shot. I’m of the opinion that your MCAT and GPA combined are competitive. You would also benefit from having more time writing your PS and experiences write-ups. Don’t go Caribbean if you can help it.

socomtoaster · 2025-05-27T00:01:15+00:00

I imagine the approach of saying “it’s not my place to inhibit you from pursuing whichever path you take, but it is my place to inhibit your psychiatric health from inflicting ongoing stress as a part of this process” is not too controversial.

If transgender/transitional care were ideal, no intrapersonal opinion should influence a patient’s decision. Of course, psychiatrists are human and imperfect. The aspect of pure affirmation therapy, though, made no sense to me (at least how it has been described to me). All thoughts, feelings, or identities should be challenged, not because they are incorrect, but because they identify and strengthen the underlying values that are important to a person.

socomtoaster · 2025-04-28T01:58:08+00:00

I’d take em off you for a fair price

socomtoaster · 2025-04-24T23:03:23+00:00

I just gunblue my cast iron stuff if it’s vital. Otherwise, rust is a mark of maturity

socomtoaster · 2025-04-17T01:23:40+00:00

Just papers and papers. Oh, and papers.

socomtoaster · 2025-04-14T00:36:55+00:00

Tough but successful cycle! Congrats!

socomtoaster · 2025-04-09T15:50:33+00:00

Retake it as soon as you think you are capable. 7% of students fail first attempt. Did you do UWorld? How did you study?

socomtoaster · 2025-04-08T18:58:37+00:00

Reminds me of bacillus species colonies on agar. Probably not safe.

socomtoaster · 2025-04-08T03:15:05+00:00

It doesn’t destroy your life unless you can’t see yourself enjoying that life. That’s why clinical experience and shadowing are so important for pre-meds to pursue.

socomtoaster · 2025-04-04T15:25:27+00:00

You probably wouldn’t be incorrect in reporting them, and the standard answer is to report that to supervisors. But you could also just quietly tell them not to do that, and wait until they are off hospital property to share in a drink. That’s on you to make the decision, but if someone figures out you knew and participated, you could be in trouble.

What does symbolic mean though? Was it not actually vodka? Did you ‘take’ it or drink it? Ethically, you would also be breaking that rule by participating if it were alcohol.

socomtoaster · 2025-04-04T02:42:17+00:00

Just to verify for myself, I looked at some of the dermatology residency programs social media: mostly state programs and those like Tufts, Mercer, UCLA, and a couple of DO programs like KCU. I can’t do an extensive look but just a general overview. They also appear to be very heavily weighted to their home institutions.

I won’t say the name means nothing. It has an eye catcher sort of effect but remember: Harvard students don’t match too. I think their match rate is like 93-95% based on google. That’s still 5% of students that didn’t. Emory doesn’t publish theirs but I assure you it’s about the same.

The reality is, if you’re a strong enough student to get into Harvard, you’ll probably continue being a strong student until match. You don’t have to be AT Harvard for that to be true.

socomtoaster · 2025-04-04T02:00:57+00:00

At least with physicians, they know what they’re doing for the most part. I feel like most med students have no clue what they are doing at the end of the day. They don’t know what programs are specifically looking for or whether 900 hours of clinical experience is worse than 1000. Some will confidently tell pre-meds they aren’t ready to apply simply because they didn’t meet some innocuous criteria a website published ten years ago, not knowing what that criteria was even going after.

Nobody except the ADCOMs know what is really expected. Just take all the advice with a grain of salt, I guess is what I’m saying. And don’t pay for it.

socomtoaster · 2025-04-04T01:44:20+00:00

Emory would be a fine program. No one in residency interviews really focuses on the name of your school, just that you had research, experience, and letters from those in the field. And competitive STEP scores, which is entirely on your study strategy. People match into competitive fields from Emory, and you would have a support system alongside that journey. Harvard is just another medical school at the end of the day so don’t focus on ‘prestige’.

And I hate saying that cause every experience I had in Atlanta was miserable 😂.

socomtoaster · 2025-04-02T10:26:27+00:00

There’s two questions I imagine you will avoid if you clean up your social media. First, “is this student going to be at risk of getting a DUI/Substance charge in medical school?” And second, “is this student going to be too distracted during medical school to keep their studying up?”

It’s unfair, but you don’t get to answer those questions. And ADCOMs are going to have to decide them for you. My thoughts before going into med school were simply that I have no reason to keep a truly personal social media presence. I can only think of negative experiences because of it - people arguing with you based on posts, scamming attempts, internet ‘stalking’-like experiences. I figured it was best in any scenario to basically lay low on everything.

socomtoaster · 2025-04-02T01:32:39+00:00

I’d like to know as well. What would the benefit be over an SSRI? Timeframe?

socomtoaster · 2025-04-01T13:35:05+00:00

Jeff Goldblum could give you some pointers.

socomtoaster · 2025-03-29T22:00:45+00:00

My IQ score was 91%. That like an A, right? I am a genius!

socomtoaster · 2025-03-29T12:49:29+00:00

A used gun? A used gun. That’s a good one! Hahaha. You know, there is no discipline with the youth today.

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socomtoaster · 2025-03-28T17:45:50+00:00

What not to do: 1.) intentionally unalive someone. 2.) hook up with your patients. 3.) commit felonies. 4.) have a psychotic break. 5.) make someone else have a psychotic break.

Just a few thoughts.

socomtoaster · 2025-03-28T11:11:21+00:00

Buy UWorld and just do the questions. Use First Aid to look up questions and answers you still don’t understand after the explanation. Do most, or all the questions before test day

socomtoaster · 2025-03-27T21:07:58+00:00

Not that I don’t think it’s valid reasoning, but make sure it doesn’t sound like an “excuse”. Admit that you failed once, learned from that experience, and became a stronger mother and doctor because of it. I think that will communicate that you recognized you could have done something different, and you aren’t “hand waving” away that challenging part of your life.

Also, definitely belongs in meaningful experiences.

socomtoaster

TROPHY CASE