Psychiatry

medicine12345

Hi, I'm a final med whos thinking about specialising in psychiatry after intern year. I was just wondering if anyone had any information about how difficult it is to get onto the BST scheme after intern year, and then how difficult it is to get onto the HST scheme afterwards? How do people in general find the training, is there much research involved?
Thanks for any information/advice!

take everything

Getting onto BST isn't that difficult.
Not sure about HST. Some competition AFAIK. Obviously the more research/audits etc under your belt the better chances for HST. Training is benign enough (at least on the scheme I'm doing). 4 years of BST (foundation year and then BST 1, 2 and 3). Each year you do your portfolio which is a required number of workplace assessments (a form-filling headache mostly and an alphabet soup of acronyms) and stuff like an audit of your practice etc.

Also you need to pass exams obviously (paper A, paper B (mcqs) and CASC (clinical)) in the meantime
The BST paperwork is headache-inducing form-filling. Most people think it's overkill.

medicine12345

take everything wrote: »

Getting onto BST isn't that difficult.
Not sure about HST. Some competition AFAIK. Obviously the more research/audits etc under your belt the better chances for HST. Training is benign enough (at least on the scheme I'm doing). 4 years of BST (foundation year and then BST 1, 2 and 3). Each year you do your portfolio which is a required number of workplace assessments (a form-filling headache mostly and an alphabet soup of acronyms) and stuff like an audit of your practice etc.

Also you need to pass exams obviously (paper A, paper B (mcqs) and CASC (clinical)) in the meantime
The BST paperwork is headache-inducing form-filling. Most people think it's overkill.

Thanks for the reply. I probably won't have any real research done when applying for BST, unless I get to do some during intern year, will that stand against me much? What do they put emphasis on when applying?
Are there any particular schemes that are thought of as better than the others?
What sort of things do you do day-to-day as a psych SHO (compared to medical or surgical?) I was in a private hospital for my psych rotation so was mostly with the consultant at team meetings, opds etc so I'm not sure what you do more day-to-day as an SHO, etc. Thanks

masterboy123

Research work wont matter when applying for BST.

Scheme preference depends where you want to live. If you like to in Dublin, then choose deneary which have Dublin centers.

As a psych SHO, you do clinics and new patient assessments. If you're working in a town where there is in-patient unit then you do daily reviews of inpatients.
Then you do night calls, usually 2-4 per month depending how many NCHDs are working.

Hope this helps. All the best!

medicine12345 wrote: »

Thanks for the reply. I probably won't have any real research done when applying for BST, unless I get to do some during intern year, will that stand against me much? What do they put emphasis on when applying?
Are there any particular schemes that are thought of as better than the others?
What sort of things do you do day-to-day as a psych SHO (compared to medical or surgical?) I was in a private hospital for my psych rotation so was mostly with the consultant at team meetings, opds etc so I'm not sure what you do more day-to-day as an SHO, etc. Thanks