Psychiatry & Psychotherapy Podcast - Advice for medical students applying to psychiatric residency

Episode Date: September 16, 2018

Timothy Lee has talked to thousands of medical students about how to applying for residency programs, and here, he gives us a few tips on how to make it through the gauntlet, and how to have your best chance at landing the program you want.   Here is what Timothy Lee says: Stay calm Many students have been fine tuning their personal statements, and trying to get their resume just right, or hurrying to press the faculty to write letters of recommendation. It can be very stressful.   It's okay to turn in information a little bit later, in order to have all of the paperwork you need. It's even okay to review your statement after you've already turned it in. No one will lower their opinion based on that. You will need to have applied for the majority of the programs you are interested in by early or mid-October, otherwise the program director might wonder if you're applying to them later as a backup plan. What matters in a personal statement? Every program director will have different opinions on what you write, and every program director will be looking for different things from your personal statement. For some people, it's a chance to get to know the applicant a little bit. For others, it doesn't really matter that much.   As long as your grammar and syntax are competent, you should be fine. Some people don't worry about the format, and others are more particular. To be on the safe side, if you have access to a good mentor, run it by them. Also, don't be too wordy—stick to a page and a half. Do step scores matter? Step scores are a very convenient screening tool for what matters, but there are studies that show that step scores are not directly correlated to success in residency performance. They are helpful, but are not the end-all-be-all. It's only one part of the picture of an applicant. However, if you are going for a highly-competitive residency, you might need to worry about step scores a bit more. Apply to the right number of programs The number of programs is not the only way to increase your chance of success of getting in. Pay attention to the types of programs you are applying to as well. If you are applying for a good number of programs, make sure at least half of them are are ones you are a solid and potentially attractive candidate for. Keep a good perspective Ultimately, you are more than your CV, step score, or personal statement. If patients like you, that's going to go a long ways. Your patients won't know your scores, or where you graduated from medical school. They will know if you were competent, caring and connected. That is ultimately what matters. Join and discuss this episode with David on Instagram: dr.davidpuder Twitter: @DavidPuder Facebook: DrDavidPuder  

Welcome to the Psychiatry and Psychotherapy Podcast, the podcast to help you in your journey towards becoming a wise, empathic, genuine, and connected mental health professional. I'm your host, Dr. David Puter, a psychiatrist who splits his time practicing psychopharmacology, individual and group psychotherapy, medical director of a day treatment program, medical education research, and teaching, residents, and medical students. Dr. Lee, I know you are the program director. Yeah. And so since I have you on, and we're about around that time,

where people are applying to residency, medical students are applying to residences. Do you have any advice for medical students applying to residency, psychiatric residency? Hmm. I guess having talked with a couple of senior medical students recently. Having talked to thousands of medical students. Recent conversations, one I'd say just I think in general, the students are a lot more anxious than they might need to be. A lot of students have been kind of fine-tuning their personal statements or trying to get their CV just right or scrambling to press the faculty that they've asked for letters that

maybe are not as timely in responding to those requests as a students would like. even though ERIS opens tomorrow, Saturday, September 15th, doesn't mean that if you don't have everything in, that it's the end of the world. It's okay to get stuff in a little later. Or if you make modifications to your statement to then upload the revised version, nobody's going to call you out on that

or rate you differently or lower just based on that. Certainly, you want to have your application or the vast majority of it into the programs that you're interested in by, I'd say, no later than early mid-October. If you're beyond that, the program director might start to question whether you're just applying to them later as kind of a backup versus a program. program that you stumbled upon in the interview process and realized that you would be interested in. Yeah, that's good stuff. I wonder what program directors are looking for in a personal statement. Does it matter much? That is very person dependent.

Okay. I'd say some people, it's just a chance to get. to know the applicant a little bit, as long as your grammar and your syntax are reasonably competent. Some people don't really stress out about the actual format or the way that you shape the personal statement. Some people are a lot more particular in terms of what they're looking for or what they think should be included in a personal statement. So, really runs the gamut. I know our associate program director here, Dr. Perrault, she does, just goes way above and beyond in trying to help our senior medical students applying for psychiatry

in terms of shaping their personal statements and what they put in them. So certainly for any students, if you have access to a good mentor, definitely want to run it by them, get their input. But the personal statement is so subjective. You're going to get a whole range of people. What are some red flags you would never want to put in your personal statement? Are there any red flags that jump out at you for previous years? For me, it really is making sure you've got your spelling, your syntax correct. That's your flow is reasonably organized, that it's not too verbose.

I forget what the limit is on ERIS, but if your personal statement's coming out to more than a page and a half, your reader is probably going to lose focus or lose interest and your statement won't have the impact that you really want it to. I'm probably on the less particular end as far as what I want in a personal statement. How about with the fear that your step score is not enough? Have we ever accepted a low step score into this program? Like choosing that person above other maybe higher step scores? Like is it only the step score that matters? Steps are. So the step score is.

a very convenient screening tool for programs, but there actually have been people who've tried to do research into what parts of the application are predictive of future success in residency. And your step score has not been correlated. Granted, there's always limitations with research and correlational data,

but the step score has not been correlated with performance in residency, which also is a very subjective assessment. I mean, what defines how well you're performing in residency. But the short answer is it's helpful, but it's not the end-all-be-all. It's only one component of the whole picture of who a person or an applicant is.

And so, while we might pay attention to if a person struggled, you know, particularly if they've failed once or twice on a step exam. Beyond that, if you pass the first time but you don't have like a super high score, that's not necessarily the end of the world. And I'll just go ahead and mention that regardless of what other people think of in terms of my current standing or success in my academic career, I failed my step two exam right before I was applying for residency. Ooh.

And by fortune or hard work or whatever one might want to attribute it to, I'd still been able to have what I think is a meaningful and successful career thus far. You are more than your step one. You are more than your step two score. For sure. You are more than your CV. I often tell medical students who rotate with me, you know what?

Interpersonally, patients like you, you add something to the room, even when you don't say very much, and that's going to go a long ways. And in psychiatry, your patients aren't going to know where you graduated psychiatry residency. They're not going to know your step scores.

They're going to know, did this doctor pay attention to me? did they seem to care about me as a person? Were they competent, you know, like in their assessment and like how they delivered information to me? And did they help me? And did they connect with me? You know, so I think like it's so interesting as I like look at some of the applicants. You know, I work with a lot of medical students.

And some of them are just awesome. And like I have no idea that they've struggled in their step scores until they tell me. And I'm like, oh, I can't believe that. But you know what? You're going to do awesome because you're awesome. And so, yeah, I think psychiatry is a little bit. It looks at the whole person. Yeah.

I would like to say we look at the whole person. Now, if you're trying to go to like a top program that's super competitive, you know, they may need to screen out a certain amount of people because they just get bombarded by applications. It's a convenient screening tool. But in general, here at Loma Linda, we try to look at the, the whole person. And I think that's probably what happens across the board. So, yeah, any other advice you would give to an applying medical student?

Probably the other really pertinent and important thing to mention is the programs applied to. So I know there's increasing pressure from deans and schools of medicine for their students to apply to. a seemingly ever higher number of programs in order to increase chances of success. And what I want to say about that is the number is not the only thing that matters. It also matters which programs you're applying to and how good of a fit or how likely of a candidate you are for those programs. So if you're applying for, let's say somebody applies for like 15 programs and they're well qualified for all 15 of those, you know, I feel much better about that person than I do about someone who's applied to 30 programs, but they apply to like 20 or 25 like really strong programs that they may be a weaker candidate for or might not, you know, you know, make the cut as much, you know, that's a person I'd be much more worried about

because the number of parents that they applied to that they're likely to be attractive to is so much lower. So the absolute number of applications is not the important thing so much as that you're applying smartly to a range of programs. Certainly, yeah, if there's a couple of dream programs you have that you'd really like to be at and you realize you're maybe not the strongest candidate for, go ahead and apply, but make sure that you're also applying to a good number of programs, you know, maybe in 50% of your total applications to programs that you are a solid, potentially attractive candidate for. That's great. Dr. Lee, it's been a pleasure. Thank you for coming on.

Likewise. Time's flown a lot faster than I thought it would.