Thread: Where is the best place to do clinicals if you are interested in Psychiatry?

I was thinking Brentwood, but it appears that I will have to move around a lot in that case.

Brentwood would not necessarily be the best place to do psyc. because it is not directly affiliated with a residency program. There are residents that occasionally rotate there and there are fellows that are there I believe, but it is not home to a residency program. Honestly, psyc. isn't the most competitive specialty out there, not saying there aren't competitive programs, but the specialty as a whole isn't that difficult to get into. You really shouldn't base where you do your 3rd year rotations on what you think you might be interested in at this point. Choose the location based on where you will be the most comfortable and where you will have to move the least because that gets expensive and generally takes longer if you are constantly moving around for clinicals.

This is not to say that the rotation at Brentwood is not a good one, I personally don't know. I have heard good things about it from other people who have done their rotation there and thought it was pretty good. Just wanted to make sure you have all the information about it.

Brentwood is directly affiliated with the Psychiatry program at LSU

https://freida.ama-assn.org/Freida/u...ber=4052112188

University Psychiatry || LSUHSC-S Department of Psychiatry || University Psychiatry || LSUHSC-S Department of Psychiatry

Dr. S is in charge of the medical students and the residents/fellows who rotate there. He is board certified in 3 psych subspecialties in addition to 2 other medical specialties (I believe emergency and family). If you rotate with him, you will get massive amounts of experience in child, adolescent, and adult psych - 90% inpatient and about 10% outpatient. I don't think any of the other attendings there do both children/adolescents and adults, inpatient and outpatient. He also does some chronic pain, substance abuse, and occasional geriatric although there are other attendings who do those specialties as their main practice. With Dr. S you will see everything, and you may even get to go to some of his outside hospitals. You also do all the new patient intakes and dictate the psych consults. YOU get to see the patient FIRST. This is an acute care facility for patients who need no major medical management, but if there is a test you want ordered or a medication recommendation/adjustment, he will listen to you and may even agree and write the order. If you want psych, I would highly recommend this rotation. Not only that, but you can go back and do a sub-I for 4 to 6 weeks and really do some good work. One of the current fellows is an AUC grad. The LSU fellows can start their fellowship during their last year of residency instead of waiting until after residency.

There is the POSSIBILITY of doing some rotations in Baton Rouge (IM, Surgery, Family) along with some electives but it helps if you have connections in Louisiana. Cost of living in LA is great! Ease of getting around is great too.

If you would re-read my post from above I said that there are fellows that are there and some residents have the option to rotate there. All of the information I got was from a resident currently in the psyc. program at LSUHSC-Shreveport and someone I have known for several years. She said they have the option of doing a rotation at Brentwood depending on what their interests are. I wanted to make sure the OP wasn't thinking that he/she would be rotating at a place that was the sponsoring institution for a residency program. I also stipulated that I had not personally rotated there and had heard good things from those who had. The remainder of my post about choosing where to do rotations still stands. Especially considering that the financial aid budget was just decreased, it would be wise to limit how much you are spending trying to relocate after 1-2 rotations for almost 2 years. Yes, the cost of living in Louisiana is very good, I would know since I have lived here all of my life, but it gets expensive having to drive to another city, sometimes far away after each rotation. I was simply making the point that you should consider a lot of things, not just what you think you may be interested in for a residency, in choosing where to do your clinicals. If you could get psyc. in Shreveport and then get the others mentioned above in Baton Rouge in a row, that would be a great way to do most of your 3rd year. I was not trying to talk the OP out of doing the rotation at Brentwood, just wanted you to have all the information before making a decision.

My apologies Tiger, I wasn't trying to over step you. Yesterday was a little rough for me and my tone might have come across differently than I had intended. One really positive thing about getting a rotation with Dr. S is that he will write you a letter on LSU letterhead at the end of your six weeks. I felt that the letter I got was personalized and not just a canned version that sounds really good on the surface. I was also trying to emphasize that this is a rotation (depending on the attending you are assigned to) that will allow you to DO a lot, not just SEE a lot. I want the most bang for my buck - more specifically, I want the education I am paying for. The letter was just the icing on the cake and it was given freely. I know that Psych is not for me, but after spending time in Louisiana, I can say that I would consider it a good residency location. A rotation there could easily help land a residency spot there (LSU) as well. Of course that is a door that can swing both ways. On the other hand there are some programs where we do core rotations that won't give residency slots to our students in some specialties (such as surgery), which really is a shame.

Thank you guys for your thoughts. I appreciate it.

Dr. Eileen, Is there a way to request Dr. S when i schedule my rotations? I know very little about the process of scheduling rotations. Also, I don't know what you two mean by directly/indirectly affiliated with a residency program.

One more question, if money wasn't a factor, do you believe rotating at different hospitals is better for letterss of rec's, getting a residency, etc.? Or is it better to do most of your rotations in one location for some particular reason?

As far as being directly/indirectly associated with a residency program. Directly associated with a program would be an institution that sponsors a residency program. Using the locations we have been talking about, LSUHSC Shreveport would be a place directly affiliated with a residency program, as the department of psychiatry is located there along with the program director, etc. Brentwood is indirectly associated with the psychiatry residency program at LSUHSC because the residents have the option of rotating at Brentwood and some of the faculty that work at Brentwood also are considered as professors at LSUHSC.

As for doing all your rotations at one place or moving around, I don't know that it will necessarily affect getting a residency or not. I think it really comes down to what you want to do. I did all but 2 rotations at the same hospital, including most of my 4th year electives. I did the last 2 electives at a hospital that was close to home and was where I eventually matched. I think it is more important to do a couple of electives at places in the early part of your 4th year before you apply for residency to improve your chances of matching somewhere in particular. If you were to do that, you would want to do those electives by September the year before you match.

Double post.