Career Advisor's Background and Career
Information
Background
Name: Lowell Tong, MD
Career Advisor for: Psychiatry
Title(s): Director, UCSF Medical Student Education
Best way to contact (e-mail, phone?): lowellt@lppi.ucsf.edu
or (415) 476-7469
Undergraduate & Graduate Degrees/Institutions: B.S., Stanford
University M.D., University of Virginia Psychiatry Residency, UCSF
Clinical Interests/Duties: Consultation Psychiatry General Outpatient
Psychiatry
Research Interests/Duties: Scholarship, curriculum development
Personal Notes or Comments: Happy to meet with anyone with an interest
in Psychiatry. You don't need to be committed to the specialty - pleased
to provide you with career information, electives options, residency strategies.
Career Information
1. What can students do in the 1st and 2nd years to explore and/or
prepare for this career? Homeless Clinic! Network with Psychiatry
Department faculty or residents and check out their clinical, teaching
or educational endeavors. Contact Lowell Tong for connections, or check
out the Department website at http://psych.ucsf.edu
2. What common variations exist in the length/content of residency
programs for this career? Standard psychiatry residency is four years
including internship. Options include trading the fourth year for one
of the two years of Child/Adolescent Psychiatry fellowship. Other fellowships
include research, forensic, consultation psychiatry, addiction.
3. What common variations exist in this career after training?
Too many to list - arenas include clinical service; basic, translational
and clinical research; administrative/leadership of psychiatric departments
or public institutions; health policy; education; industry (insurance,
pharmaceuticals, other commercial science).
4. What is a typical work day for you (or someone else representative)?
Full day in clinic, or as a hospitalist, or in a lab, a couple of meetings
- and everything in between.
5. What is the "culture" of this career? So incredibly
varied it's impossible to describe fully. The clinical side includes time
for a real focus on the doctor-patient relationship, so critical for effective
clinical practice. Research includes the excitement of developing molecular,
animal and systems models for understanding the human mind and behavior
and mental illness, treatments, and interacting with scientists from related
fields.
6. How compatible is this career with raising a family? How is this
different for men and women? Very compatible for any gender. Psychiatry
is very pro-diversity in all senses.
7. How important, individually, are each the following for admission
to a competitive program:
a. Extra-curricular/volunteer work? fairly important
b. Research/publications? less important
c. Honors in third year? helps but not required
d. AOA? helps but not required
e. A sub-internship? one psychiatry sub-i is recommended
f. An externship? depends - talk to Lowell!
g. (Other important elements to the application?) Personal Statement
is a very key item. Clarity of reasons for entering the field. Curiosity
about human behavior and mental illness from a clinical or research
perspective, or both. Letters from people who know you and your work
really well first hand - level of fame not important.
8. What are the most important qualities or character traits for
a person in this field? Anything that conveys how utterly reliable
and stable you are. Demonstration of at least some psychological mindedness.
9. How competitive are the residency programs in this field? Top
six or so programs nationally are supercompetitive. UCSF is considered
one of these very top programs, and the residency loves UCSF grads! Next
dozen or so are competitive but most UCSF students with a solid or better
record have a great chance of matching at a top choice. Community based,
non academic programs are fairly easy for most UCSF students to match
in.
10. How competitive is the job market after residency? Director,
UCSF Medical Student Education
11. What programs would you consider to be in the 1st tier, 2nd tier,
and 3rd tier? Top tier, in no particular order: UCSF UCLA Harvard
programs Columbia and others - complicated since the "tier" depends on
subspecialty interest (clinical, research, etc.) Talk to advisors!
12. What resources (web, books, etc, besides the AMA and AAMC sites)
would you recommend for students interested in learning more about this
field? American Psychiatric Association information for medical
students interested in careers in psychiatry: sections on student research
fellowships, training, careers, APA meeting travel awards, and a student
newsletter: http://www.psych.org/
Online Journals: http://www.psychiatryonline.org
and http://archpsyc.ama-assn.org
UCSF residency http://psych.ucsf.edu/Students/For_Students.asp
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