Can someone tell me how competitive it is to match in a med/psych program? I have no idea and am curious about how widespread my search for programs needs to be. I am basically an average student from an American school and I don't know where that puts me. Thanks for your help.
Here's a response to an e-mail message I sent out last year in response to the same questions:
med-psych residencies are not as competitive as it would seem based on the few slots available. I don't know, yet, what the match results were for med-psych programs this year. I know in general they fill about 60% of the slots nationwide. Specific programs, however, may be fairly competitive, but overall, if you want to do a combined program, and you are an average US grad, you can probably get a spot somewhere.
The easiest way to gauge how competitve a specific med-psych program is would be to look at its medicine residency - the med-psych program will probably be slightly more competitive than the medicine residency at that specific place. Essentially, any combined applicant needs to meet the minimum standards for each program, and the medicine programs usually have slightly higher standards.
So, if you think you would be fairly competitve at a specific programs medicine residency, then you probably would also be pretty competitive in that places med-psych program.
Thank you very much for your help. That's good to know and a good place to start.