Dual Applying to Non-Clinical PhD programs

[The Cinnabon]

Sorry if this has already been asked but I couldn't find a single post on this when I searched the forum. Anyways, I'm about 6 months deep in a solid RA gig and I've come to realize I don't really care one way or another about having a clinical portion to my career. I know plenty of people have 100% research careers coming from clinical programs, and I'm not against getting clinical training.

The aspect I'd appreciate input from y'all on would be

1. How much would it harm me in the academic/research job market if I didn't have clinical training? For clarity I would likely apply to Public Health PhDs to work with faculty who do the MH research I'm interested in (which is broadly suicide, PTSD, and culture).

2. Clinical/Counseling Programs are incredibly competitive. In an ideal world I would get into a powerhouse that would also supply me clinical training, but we all know that often time that doesn't happen. Would the clinical training be worth going to a school that has a smaller research network/impact vs. attending a "sexier" research powerhouse but having non-clinical training?

I apologize if something doesn't make sense and would be glad to clarify anything.

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[Temperance]

With regard to your second question, it depends on how you feel about doing clinical work. If it's something that you enjoy, then you might not feel like it's a waste of precious research time to be doing clinical hours. If you're doing it because you have to and you'd much rather do research, then you might be happier at a more research-heavy program. The research networking will be more advisor-dependent rather than program-dependent, though being at a program that actually has supports in place for students to do their own research would help quite a bit.

 

[futureapppsy2]

The academic job market is generally much, much, much, much better for clinical/school/counseling psych PhDs than other psych PhDs. I'd strongly recommend sticking to PhD programs in licensable fields for that reason. Plus, then you also have clinical work as an option.

 

[summerbabe]

MH research I'm interested in (which is broadly suicide, PTSD, and culture)

One thing to consider is the type of background that people who currently hold jobs that you'd like in the future. When aiming for a specific career, having similar background is helpful and sometimes required (i.e., possible bias may exist for people who take less traditional paths).

Based on my exposure (as a VA clinician) to research in suicide and PTSD, the prominent names that I can think of in these fields have clinical PhD training. Some of them are probably very interested/active still in clinical work while others probably wouldn't be caught dead practicing these days.

So while you may be happy never doing clinical work, having a clinical PhD degree might be a pre-requisite training for certain types of research careers.

If you choose a non-clinical PhD path, make sure that these programs/mentors have a clear track record of past graduates who end up in positions that you'd be happy with. Good luck!

 

[R. Matey]

Something to consider is it sounds like you have clinical research interests so I think the exposure to your topic in another way aside from looking at people's data might help you inform research questions.

 

[bcliff]

I'll echo the point mentioned above that being on the academic job market with a clinical/license-eligible doctoral degree (PhD, MD, etc.) is much easier than being on the job market with a non-clinical degree. I know multiple, highly qualified non-clinical PhDs who have struggled to find academic jobs, with some either leaving academia altogether or finding faculty jobs outside of the U.S.

On the other hand, I can't think of a single clinical psychology PhD colleague who has pursued an academic career and been unable to find a position. These colleagues have most often found faculty positions in academic medicine, with at least some clinical effort (i.e., 10%-100% clinical effort) -- Most of these colleagues went to the same PhD program as me, which was a fully-funded clinical psychology PhD with a roughly 50/50 clinical-research split housed within a non-R1 institution.

All that to say, it's definitely possible to be competitive for academic jobs even coming out of a non-R1 institution, with the caveat that the kind of faculty positions you'll likely be most competitive for will probably have some clinical responsibilities.

 

[Ollie123]

Not sure if it was an edit, but a lot of people seem to assume you are applying to non-clinical psychology programs. That is very different from a PhD in Public Health like you mentioned.

Personally, I wouldn't hesitate for a public health PhD. I would for some other fields. I do have some (small) regrets about going the clinical route. Mostly that I think I'd have been done in 1-2 years less with a non-clinical degree. The clinical training took time and I spent longer in graduate school rather than coming out with less research training than I wanted. I could have done a longer post-doc or something, but no guarantees that would have worked as well.

This also depends on what precisely you REALLY want to do. Are you designing interventions for people with borderline PD? You should absolutely get a clinical degree in that situation, it would be silly not to do so. More focused around the prevalence, disparities, maybe some lightweight communications/messaging work on the topic? I wouldn't hesitate to do a degree in Public Health if it was the right fit. This is assuming you can concentrate in something like epidemiology vs some generic "health behavior" type concentration.

The quant training you get in a good epidemiology program is effectively as good a "backup" as clinical training is as you'll be qualified for all sorts of government and industry gigs. Inside academia, public health generally will pay better than psychology departments though the experience of the job is often different (they typically fall somewhere between AMC and traditional university settings in job structure).

I know more clinical folks who struggled to get faculty jobs than I do public health folks.

 

[The Cinnabon]

Not sure if it was an edit, but a lot of people seem to assume you are applying to non-clinical psychology programs. That is very different from a PhD in Public Health like you mentioned.

Personally, I wouldn't hesitate for a public health PhD. I would for some other fields. I do have some (small) regrets about going the clinical route. Mostly that I think I'd have been done in 1-2 years less with a non-clinical degree. The clinical training took time and I spent longer in graduate school rather than coming out with less research training than I wanted. I could have done a longer post-doc or something, but no guarantees that would have worked as well.

This also depends on what precisely you REALLY want to do. Are you designing interventions for people with borderline PD? You should absolutely get a clinical degree in that situation, it would be silly not to do so. More focused around the prevalence, disparities, maybe some lightweight communications/messaging work on the topic? I wouldn't hesitate to do a degree in Public Health if it was the right fit. This is assuming you can concentrate in something like epidemiology vs some generic "health behavior" type concentration.

The quant training you get in a good epidemiology program is effectively as good a "backup" as clinical training is as you'll be qualified for all sorts of government and industry gigs. Inside academia, public health generally will pay better than psychology departments though the experience of the job is often different (they typically fall somewhere between AMC and traditional university settings in job structure).

I know more clinical folks who struggled to get faculty jobs than I do public health folks.

Clinical is probably the way to go. I'm pretty interested in analyzing how to treat suicidal ideation in non-western populations. This is something I've been lucky enough to research during my RA years and I've been really enjoying it.

I will say though that this is an odd crossroads for me because I'm also really interested in looking at suicide/ptsd from an epidemiology perspective. A more "out there" goal I have is to look at suicide rates in Japan and/or South Korea and do some research there. I don't really think having clinical skills would help there as I'm not natively fluent in either language.

Having an interest in international populations does throw in some stipulations and I shouldn't have left that out either.

 

[Ollie123]

I think for IDEATION its absolutely critical to go to a clinical program. That's tough to act on through policy changes and public health-style interventions. Perhaps a global health program could still fit, but that's going to be much more niche than it sounded before.