Is Psychiatry’s Popularity Rising Among U.S. Med School Seniors?
It is possible that the new generation of medical students is attracted to a psychiatry that is now better integrated with the rest of medicine and that offers work-life balance.
The popularity of psychiatry as a specialty choice among medical school seniors—and competitiveness for residency slots—may be increasing, according to recent data from the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP).
Between 2014 and 2018, psychiatry residency programs saw a 65 percent increase in applications from U.S. seniors, said John Spollen, M.D., a professor of psychiatry at the University of Arkansas Medical School, who presented an analysis of the NRMP data at the September meeting of the Association for Academic Psychiatry in Milwaukee. Spollen’s analysis was part of a workshop at the meeting on “Evidence-based Recruitment and Advising for Future Psychiatrists.”
Meanwhile, the increase of senior applicants during the same period was just 8 percent. Moreover, in 2018 a total of 254 U.S. medical school seniors who applied to psychiatry did not match into any program.
“This year the rate for psychiatry [of unmatched applicants] was 13.7 percent, which was the highest among any specialty in medicine,” Spollen told Psychiatric News in an interview.
www.Psychnews.psychiatryonline.org.
Author: Mark Moran