Is anyone else out there highly focused towards psychiatry?? This is my reason for doing this. The more I read, the more I think I may need to go the DO path. However, in all the 28 years I have worked in mental health and human services, I have NEVER seen a DO psychiatrist. They all have been MD’s. Pro’s ? Con’s? Thoughts? Experiences??
Holy Cow?! You know what, me neither?!
What a good observation; one would think that the philosophy of osteopathic medicine would lend towards a disposition for mental health.
Next time I’m at work I’m going to ask some of our DOs about this. Now you’ve got me thinking…
Here’s a link to a site of osteopathic psychiatric residencies
http://www.opportunities.osteopathic.org/search/se…
In the UVA postbacc program they had a DO come and talk about osteopathic medicine. She happened to be a psychiatrist, and said she had no difficulty securing a psychiatric residency although she did do a 1 year general rotating internship (a common path among DO residencies) first.
She said that when there was a medical issue with one of the psychiatric inpatients she was the “go to” resident because of her rotating internship experience.
Kate
Hi VickiV,
I believe the reason you haven’t seen any is because there are much fewer DO’s out there than MD’s. I see you are on the east coast, and there are fewer DO’s there than MD’s. It’s the same for the west coast, however you will find many DO’s in the middle states.
I am on the west coast in Seattle, and know of one DO who is a psychiatrist and works at Harborview Medical Center, a teaching hospital and regional major trauma center affiliated with the University of Washington. Here is her CV:
http://depts.washington.edu/pbscifac/Bentley_CV.pd…
They’re out there. Best of luck,
Marilyn
Hey VickiV,
Psychiatry is one of my main motivators as well given that it is how I really got exposed to the field of mental health/medicine (~2 years in psychiatric acute care setting as a tech).
Like labmouse stated, I think the reason that you’ve observed less DOs than MD psychiatrists is simply that there are many less DO graduates that make up the overall physician population.
At my work, out of those that proceed to pursue medical education, a significant number of those accept spots at DO schools. Some even write back and mention how they are currently in psychiatric residencies.
Pros/cons? I guess it depends what you’re referring to. But as far as patients go, I really don’t think that they’re going to care about the letters behind your name as long as they know you’re a “doctor” and in this case a board certified psychiatrist.
Hope that helps…
koruca
According to the NRMP (residency match)2011 data, 115 DO grads matched into allopathic psych programs of the approximately 1100 allopathic psych PGY-1 spots or about 10% of the total. Additionally, there were 1561 DOs who matched into all allopathic residencies so 7.3% of DOs grads who matched went into alloptahic psych. I do not have the AOA (osteopathic) data to add to this