What Does the Psychiatry Match Data Look Like?

Session 59

Looking at the Psychiatry Match data, it’s easy to see that it is becoming a more popular field. I discuss all the data in today’s Specialty Stories podcast.

Finding physicians for this show has been a challenge so we’d like to ask for your help. If you know a physician who would be a great addition to this podcast, shoot me an email at ryan@medicalschoolhq.net .

Go to medicalschoolhq.net/specialtiescovered and you’d find a list of physicians that we’ve already covered here on the show.

Today, we cover Psychiatry match data based on the 2017 NRMP Main Residency Match Data.

[03:20] General Summary

There are 236 programs in psychiatry. Comparing it with other specialties, pediatrics has 204 programs. So there are 32 more psychiatry programs than there are pediatric programs.

The total number of positions offered for Psychiatry is 1,495 spots. This means a little over 6 spots per program. Whereas pediatrics is much bigger with twice as many spots of 2,738 in 204 program. So it’s almost 13 1/2 spots per program – almost double the size of psychiatry programs.

There were 3 unfilled programs in 2017 and the total number of U.S. Senior applicants for those 1,495 spots was only 1,067. These are the students at MD medical schools who are still in school, and not those that have graduated. So there were less students applying to those spots than there were spots available.

There were 2,614 applicants. It’s almost 1,200 more applicants than there were spots available. This is still pretty competitive to apply.

Looking at the number of those that matched, only 923 of those 1,067 U.S. Seniors did match while over a hundred of those did not match into Psychiatry. It was only about 61.7% of those that matched are U.S. Seniors.

Looking at other fields that matched, Anesthesiology was 66.8%, Dermatology at 92.3%, and PGY-2 positions for dermatology is 81.8%.

[07:05] Types of Applicants and Growth Trends

Table 2 of the NRMP Match Data for 2017 shows the matches by specialty and applicant types.

For Psychiatry, there were four spots that went unfilled, 923 were U.S. Seniors and that’s about almost 62%. 49 were U.S. Graduates. These were students who went to anMD school but had graduated already. Maybe they didn’t get in the first time or they were just taking a gap year doing some research or travel, whatever.

[Tweet “”A good percentage of osteopathic students are getting into Psychiatry.” https://medicalschoolhq.net/ss-59-what-does-the-psychiatry-match-data-look-like/”]

There were 216 osteopathic students, 166 U.S.-Citizen International Medical Graduates, and 137 non-U.S.citizen International Medical Graduates. There were four unfilled positions.

Table 3 shows the growth trends covering 2013 to 2017. Psychiatry is growing a bunch, about 5% every year. In 2017, it grew 5.2%. Table 7 shows positions offered and number filled by U.S. Seniors and all applicants from 2013 to 2017. There’s an interesting trend in Psychiatric that it’s becoming more popular among U.S. graduates. When you go back to 2013, it was only about 52% of the class who were U.S. graduates.

[Tweet “”If you’re interested in Psychiatry, it seems to be growing. Hopefully there’ll be spots for you as you continue down your training path.” https://medicalschoolhq.net/ss-59-what-does-the-psychiatry-match-data-look-like/”]

In 2017, U.S. Seniors comprised 61.7% while in 2013, it was only around 52% and been going up year over year.

Table 9 shows you how big a specialty is int he grand scheme of specialties. Ophthalmology is a separate match so that’s not included. For Psychiatry, 5.4% of all students who matched, matched into Psychiatry. Just to give you a scale, Anesthesiology was only 4.1%, Emergency Medicine is 7.4%, Internal Medicine is 25.6%, Family Medicine is 11.6%. OB/GYN is 4.7%.

[11:40] Osteopathic Students

And if you’re an osteopathic student interested to know your chances, Table 11 will show it to you. 7.4% of all DO students who matched into an MD program, matched into Psychiatry. Compared to the rest, Family Medicine and Internal Medicine are huge, Anesthesiology is 5.6%, Emergency Medicine is 9.6%. So the ratios are very similar.

Figure 6 shows the percentages of unmatched U.S. Seniors and Independent Applicants who ranked each specialty as their only choice.

If you are only ranking Psychiatry, there’s a total unmatched percentage of 30.8%. But don’t let that scare you if you’re a U.S. Senior. Because their unmatched percentage is only at 7.4%. 52.9% of those who are independent applicants (ex. DO students, U.S. citizen and non-U.S. citizen international medical graduates, Canadian students) did not match

[13:13] SOAP

Let’s go to the SOAP (Supplemental Offer and Acceptance Program). There were four unfilled programs, when you look at the data. But interestingly, when you look at the SOAP for 2017, there were only three available positions. One of those positions was either filled or taken off of the board. So there were two programs with three positions available. And all three of those spots were filled through the SOAP.

[13:45] NRMP Charting the Outcomes 2017 – Contiguous Ranks

Based on the 2016 NRMP Charting the Outcomes, Table 1 shows the number of applicants and positions in the 2016 match by preferred specialty. Psychiatry has 1,586 spots, 2,134 applicants, number of all applicants per position was 1.54, as one of the highest on this list.

There are a lot of International Medical Grads and DO students are applying for these spots. Specialties like vascular surgery only has 56 positions and the total number of applicants per position is 1.91. The only one here above Psychiatry other than that is Neurosurgery which is 1.58. So there are a lot of applicants for those spots.

Chart 4 tells the median number of contiguous ranks of U.S. Allopathic Seniors. Those who matched in Psychiatry ranked 9 programs in a row; while those that did not match only ranked 5.

[Tweet “”You need to apply to a lot of programs and rank a lot of programs. That is the same across the board for every specialty.” https://medicalschoolhq.net/ss-59-what-does-the-psychiatry-match-data-look-like/”]

Further down the report is Table P-1 is the summary stats for Psychiatry. The mean number of contiguous ranks for those who matched is 9.6 while those who didn’t is 5.6. Mean number of distinct specialties ranked is 1.1 for those who matched and 1.3 for those who went unmatched. For those who did not match were a little bit wishy washy with their specialty choice.

[16:30] Step 1 and Step 2 Scores, AOA Members, and PhD Degree

Step 1 scores for Psychiatry is not as high as some of the other programs. Psychiatry has 224 for mean Step 1 score and 214 for those that did not match. For Mean Step 2 Scores, 238 for those that matched, and 226 for those that did not.

For AOA (the honor society for medical students) members, only 6.2% of the students who matched were AOA members while none of those that did not match were AOA members.

4.4% had a PhD degree and 0 unmatched had a PhD degree. You could look at that saying that you have to have a PhD degree to match into Psychiatry or you have to be an AOA member to match. But you have to look at the data yourself.

[18:00] 2018 Medscape Lifestyle and Compensation Reports

The 2018 Medscape Lifestyle Report shows the highest outside of work is 61% for Allergy Immunology and the lowest is Cardiology at 40%. Psychiatry is right in the middle at 51%.

But let’s also look at the 2017 NRMP Main Residency Match Data. Psychiatry and mental health are at the bottom for burnout at 42% versus Emergency Medicine at 59%. How severe is the burnout, they’re much lower at 4 on the scale.

[Tweet “”Not surprisingly, the question which physicians are most burnt out, Psychiatry and Mental Health are at the very bottom. They probably have some coping skills.” https://medicalschoolhq.net/ss-59-what-does-the-psychiatry-match-data-look-like/”]

Which physicians are happiest outside of work and at work? Psychiatry is lower on the list with 66% happy outside, and 37% are happy at work. And they’re found on the lower end of the scale.

Looking at the 2017 Medscape Compensation Report, Psychiatry is on the lower end. That’s understandable because usually, the more procedure-heavy specialties are compensated more. Their average annual compensation is at $235K while Orthopedics is up at $489K. So that’s a big difference. Pediatrics is the lowest at $202K.

However, they’re getting 4% salary increase year over year. Slide 18 shows which physicians feel fairly compensated and Psychiatry is top 3 at 64%, next to Dermatology and Emergency Medicine (first).

Slide 38 is a question about whether they’d choose medicine again and Psychiatry is top 2 at 82%, Rheumatology is at 83%. 87% of Psychiatry also say that they would choose the same specialty again. The highest is Dermatologist and Orthopedics is next.

[21:38] Final Thoughts

As mentioned earlier, we are in need of more physicians to interview. Please help us find out which physicians are interested in coming on the show. Go to medicalschoolhq.net/specialtiescovered and see which ones have been done.