Psychiatry Friendly Fellowship Programs?

[Psychintern2006]

Anyone knows places that have current Fellows with background Residency in Psych.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[shrnkmd]

There are very few programs in sleep medicine that are exclusively under the umbrella of psychiatry- I know of two (University of Mississippi and Dartmouth); Most programs in Northeast are Multidisciplinary; Mid west is heavily Pulmonology focussed; South is heavily neurology based and/or pediatric focussed. Just an overview!!

 

[Faebinder]

Thomas Jefferson is a psychiatry program with sleep medicine fellowship.

I wouldn't sweat it. Apply to all programs after calling them, reason is I highly doubt pulmonologists will go into sleep medicine fellowships as I stated in my other posts. Why would they? They already did 3 years IM and 3 years fellowship. To do another year is quite painful. I am not saying it's not possible but painful. So expect more neurologists and pyschiatrists to take over slowly as the grandfathering period shuts out. I am not sure how it will transform in the future. I predict that we will see sleep medicine become a 2 year fellowship in the future in order for them to make sure that the pulmonary aspect is not undertaught.

Maybe I'm talking out of my a$$. Too bad we dont have some ancient attending around who can tell us about where is sleep medicine headed.

 

[neurologist]

Thomas Jefferson is a psychiatry program with sleep medicine fellowship.

Mayo, Stanford, Cleveland Clinic are all great programs that take head-shrinkers.

I predict that we will see sleep medicine become a 2 year fellowship in the future in order for them to make sure that the pulmonary aspect is not undertaught.

Doubtful. If anything that would kill sleep med fellowships because the return on an extra year of fellowship won't be that isn't that great (see next section). Unless you plan on doing lots of prospective research, a year is plenty.

Too bad we dont have some ancient attending around who can tell us about where is sleep medicine headed.

I'm not "ancient" but I can take a stab at telling you where sleep med is headed: lower reimbursement rates because many sleep studies (certainly those on people with high pre-test probability of uncomplicated OSA) will be getting done as home studies rather than at a fixed sleep center. This is going to soar over the next couple years and you can bet that the reimbursement rate will be way lower than for in-house studies. The next step will be to send all these patients home with auto-titrating CPAP, which eliminates the need for in-house titration studies, further cutting into revenue. Fixed sleep centers will, of course, still exist due to the need to study other-than-OSA and more complex patients, but there will be a significant dropoff in in-house volume. Of course, there will be some offset because more and more people are getting referred for sleep evals, but you can only see so many patients in a day, so overall revenue is going to drop. My only slightly cynical prediction is that decrease in reimbursement and higher workload is going to lead to a significant dropoff in interest in the specialty over the next 5-10 years.

So I hope you're in it out of interest and not for the $$$, 'cause that's going to dry up . . .

 

[Faebinder]

Mayo, Stanford, Cleveland Clinic are all great programs that take head-shrinkers.




Doubtful. If anything that would kill sleep med fellowships because the return on an extra year of fellowship won't be that isn't that great (see next section). Unless you plan on doing lots of prospective research, a year is plenty.



I'm not "ancient" but I can take a stab at telling you where sleep med is headed: lower reimbursement rates because many sleep studies (certainly those on people with high pre-test probability of uncomplicated OSA) will be getting done as home studies rather than at a fixed sleep center. This is going to soar over the next couple years and you can bet that the reimbursement rate will be way lower than for in-house studies. The next step will be to send all these patients home with auto-titrating CPAP, which eliminates the need for in-house titration studies, further cutting into revenue. Fixed sleep centers will, of course, still exist due to the need to study other-than-OSA and more complex patients, but there will be a significant dropoff in in-house volume. Of course, there will be some offset because more and more people are getting referred for sleep evals, but you can only see so many patients in a day, so overall revenue is going to drop. My only slightly cynical prediction is that decrease in reimbursement and higher workload is going to lead to a significant dropoff in interest in the specialty over the next 5-10 years.

So I hope you're in it out of interest and not for the $$$, 'cause that's going to dry up . . .

Money is not a good reason for a sub specialty to drop, although it can help create one. I'm happy to hear OSA is getting to be more outpatient.. they are the least interesting of sleep medicine.

 

[TheWowEffect]

A good article about More Psychiatrists Attracted To Sleep-Medicine Career

 

[michaelrack]

The future of sleep medicine is in transition:
http://sleepdoctor.blogspot.com/

The University of Mississippi has a great sleep fellowship program that welcomes psychiatrists but also has taken a family doc, a pulmonlogist, and a neurologist in the past. I did my fellowship there from 2002-03; my background is med/psych. Was briefly director of the sleep fellowship in 2005 before I left to start a private sleep lab.
In addition to the other psychiatry friendly programs mentioned in this thread, would also recommend Pittsburgh (Western Psych) if you are interested in research. I think it is a 2 yr program.

 

[BobA]

Besides going to a residency with a psychiatry-friendly sleep fellowship, is there anything that a soon to be psych intern with an interest in sleep medicine should know about getting into the field?

How competitive is it to get in from psych? What else would I need to do to buff my application while I'm in residency?

Thank you!!