Month: May 2017

May is National Mental Health Month, which provides an excellent opportunity for foreign medical students and graduates to consider a U.S. residency program in psychiatry If you are interested in working with patients who struggle with mental health conditions, a psychiatry residency can be a great option.

Becoming a Psychiatrist

As a psychiatrist, you would specialize the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of psychological problems and mental health disorders. For this, you would employ a wide range of treatment methods, depending on the patient’s individual needs. For example, you can practice psychoanalysis, utilize the techniques of cognitive behavioral therapy, prescribe medication, or use electroconvulsive therapy to help your patients manage and recover from mental health conditions.

According to the American Psychiatric Association, trained psychiatrists have the expertise to treat both the mental and physical aspects of a patient’s health, you might want to become a psychiatrist if you are passionate about both biology and psychology. Additionally, to be a successful psychiatrist, you must be a great listener and have excellent people skills, since so much of psychoanalysis involves listening to patients express their needs and analyzing their condition based on how they act.

Although psychiatry is not the most common residency specialty for foreign medical graduates to pursue in the United States, the growing diversity within the country had led to an increased demand for psychiatrists who are proficient in multiple languages and who are sensitive to the needs of patients from a wide range of cultures. Therefore, if your dream is to become a psychiatrist, now could be a great time to land a U.S. medical residency!

Psychiatry Residency Program Details

A medical residency in psychiatry lasts for four years.

• In the first year, you will solidify your medical knowledge and develop a strong foundation in the basics of psychiatry through a combination of clinical rotations and didactic seminars. Some of the topics covered include psychiatric interviewing, diagnosis using DSM-IV, introductory psychopharmacology, and crisis stabilization.
• In your second year, you will build on what you learned in the first year, gaining more knowledge in psychopharmacology, the diagnosis of more complex conditions, and consultation-liaison psychiatry. Additionally, you may have the opportunity to pursue electives in particular subspecialties of interest.
• Studies in the third year become even more advanced. In many programs, the third year is dedicated to developing outpatient treatment skills, so you will be exposed to therapeutic modalities such as group therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, dialectical behavioral therapy, and advanced pharmacotherapy. Additionally, if you are interested in scholarly research, you might have the opportunity to work on basic science, translational, or clinical studies.
• In the fourth year, you will have the chance to unify all of your knowledge and focus on your particular clinical or research areas of interest. You may be designated a chief resident, so you would hold a leadership position and gain experience working with the most complex patient cases.

After completing a psychiatry residency, you can begin practicing as a psychiatrist, or you can consider a one-year fellowship in a particular sub-specialty area, such as:

• Addiction psychiatry
• Child/adolescent psychiatry
• Geriatric psychiatry
• Forensic psychiatry
• Psychosomatic medicine

 

Whether you hope to pursue a residency in psychiatry or any other medical specialty, FMG Portal offers valuable resources for foreign medical graduates. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you get matched to the program of your dreams!

The ERAS application opens on June 6, which is less than two weeks away! Although you still have the whole summer to get your application components together, you need to start thinking about everything you will need to do over the next few months. That includes brainstorming ideas for your personal statement and updating your CV. It’s also important to start thinking about who you want to ask for letters of reference, since you will need to give them ample time to write their letters.

Medical Residency Application Letter Requirements

Letter requirements can vary between medical residency programs, but most ask for three letters of reference. Some may allow you to submit four. As you research different residency programs, you should check to see if they have any additional, more specific requirements for letters of reference. For instance, some residency programs ask for both professional and personal letters of reference. Others request that you provide letters from attending physicians working in your particular specialty area. As a foreign medical graduate, you may also be required to submit a letter from a physician within the United States.

Who to Ask for a Letter of Reference

Letters of reference are an important part of your application because they can provide information about your clinical skills, personal qualities, work ethic, and interpersonal relationships. Therefore, your professional letters should come from attending physicians who know you relatively well and with whom your rotation was a success. Also, if you completed a student elective or a clinical externship within the United States, it is a good idea to ask for a letter from one of the physicians with whom you worked, because they can vouch for your readiness to complete a residency within the American medical system. In addition, some residency programs prefer letters of reference from rotations you completed during your fourth year of medical school, but it’s also okay to ask for a letter from an attending physician from a third-year rotation.

Although it can be tempting to ask for letters from residents or fellows with whom you worked more closely than the attending physician, most residency programs want to see letters from the attending. However, you could still ask a resident or fellow if they would be willing to meet with the attending physician to talk about your day-to-day work.

If a residency program asks for personal letters of recommendation, you have a much wider latitude of contacts to choose from. While most residency programs discourage you from getting letters from family members, you can ask a friend, mentor, coach, or other community member who knows you well and can help explain why you will be an excellent medical resident.

 

If you need more help with the residency match process, FMG Portal offers a variety of helpful resources. Contact us today for more information about getting matched in U.S. medical residency program!

If you are a foreign medical student thinking about applying to residency programs in the United States, one of the questions that you may be considering is the relative amount of time you will spend in inpatient and outpatient care settings. For the three specializations most commonly pursued by foreign medical graduates — internal medicine, family medicine, and pediatrics — the amount of inpatient and outpatient care experience you get can vary greatly between residencies, depending on the program. The right type of program for you depends on your interests and career goals.

 

Defining Inpatient and Outpatient Care

The term “inpatient care” encompasses all medical treatments that occur directly in hospitals, performed on patients that have been formally admitted to a facility. As an inpatient provider, you would most commonly be working with patients who have serious conditions that require overnight hospital stays. However, it is important to note that there are a wide variety of treatments that fall under the umbrella of inpatient care, ranging from common diagnostic procedures, like CT scans, to emergency surgery following a traumatic injury. If you envision yourself working in a hospital setting, you will probably want to look for a residency program that dedicates more rotations to inpatient care.

In contrast, “outpatient care,” also known as ambulatory care, occurs in non-hospital settings, like the office of a family physician, an outpatient surgery center, or a specialty services clinic. As an outpatient care provider, you would generally work with patients on a longer-term basis. For instance, as an outpatient family doctor, you would provide regular checkups, rather than just treating patients in the hospital when they are seriously ill or injured. If you are an internist specializing in endocrinology, you might prescribe a pharmacological treatment for patients with hormone-related diseases and monitor their care over the period of months or years, altering the treatment as necessary to improve long-range health outcomes and quality of life.

 

Choosing Between Inpatient and Outpatient Care

You don’t have to choose between a career focusing on inpatient or outpatient care before you apply for your residency, since rotations in both settings are commonly included within residency programs, especially those within internal medicine, family medicine, and pediatrics. But it can help to have an idea of which you are more interested in, so that you can choose a program that emphasizes one over the other.

One way for foreign medical students to gain experience in both inpatient and outpatient care is to complete a student elective program. In a three-month elective program, you have the opportunity to perform three rotations within the same specialty area, and you may be able to work under physicians in both hospital and non-hospital settings. There are also three-month plans allowing you to complete rotations under the supervision of attending physicians in three separate specialty areas, which can also give you the chance to gain experience in both inpatient and outpatient settings.
If you are a foreign medical student looking for an elective program, FMG Portal offers programs with both inpatient and outpatient availabilities. Contact us today for more information about the resources we provide.