The Bonus Year: Thriving When I Didn’t Match

William Barlow ElderWhen I woke up and read the email that I didn’t match, I was filled with anxiety, self-doubt, and hopelessness. Where had I gone wrong? What more could I have done?  I prepared for Phase II and submitted more applications. But with so many students vying for so few placements I was not surprised when I didn’t match again.

What seemed to start out as a failure, turned out to be—honestly—what I came to see as a “bonus year.” I sat down in March and organized a year’s worth of activities. I wanted to further my professional and academic development, carefully rewrite my internship application, and have more fun. Once I accepted that I had an extra year, I found myself enjoying a higher quality of life than I had during any other year as a student. Here are some of the ways I decided to make this year work to my advantage:

  • Professional/academic development: I arranged practica at sites that provided depth and diversity to my clinical experiences, and also found opportunities to do research related to work I wanted to do on internship. However, the single most important opportunity the bonus year afforded me was completing my dissertation. I focused on doing quality work and enjoying my topic. Having a completed dissertation strengthened my internship application, but now as an intern, I have been able to focus solely on training.
  • Revamping my Match strategies: I had an entire year to completely rework my application and my site selection strategy. I revised several essays, completely rewrote others, and incorporated the feedback of as many professionals as were willing to read my materials. This yielded some very important lessons about how to represent myself, and also caused me to reevaluate my professional goals and parts of my identity. I chose a wider range of prospective sites and was less narrow in my interests than I had been the first year.
  • Fun: I decided to spend significant time in my personal life during bonus year, being with family and friends as often as possible. I gave myself room to slow down from the forced rush I had felt leading up to internship application, and really, the rush I had felt toward every developmental step of my schooling. I made time to read for fun, organize my apartment, go to the gym, see movies, sleep more, and connect meaningfully with others.

At the end of an additional year of preparation, I felt confident reapplying for internship. I knew what to expect from the process, I had many additional insights, I knew I could handle whatever happened, and I had a better sense of humor. I opened up my email the next year to find I had matched to an incredible program I was very excited about. Although I wouldn’t have anticipated I would enjoy the extra year in graduate school, my bonus year turned out to be a great one.

[Editor’s Note: If you did not match, please read our website article for more tips and strategies to cope and move forward. APAGS encourages individuals to share their own stories in the comments below or on our Facebook page. Together we can build a more supportive, braver community until the internship crisis is resolved.]

Match Day: The Best of Times, The Worst of Times

For doctoral students in clinical, counseling, and school psychology who are applying for internship for the 2014/2015 training year, today is the day that many have stressed over and dreaded since they began the application process last summer.

For many, the overwhelming sensation will be one of relief. However, for others the reality of their match results will be more complicated. Perhaps they matched to a site that will require a move away from their families. Even worse, a critical mass of students will not match at all. They will feel heartbroken, shocked, and angry.

The internship crisis remains one of the biggest challenges for psychology graduate students. While trainees must secure a doctoral internship to meet the requirements for graduation and licensure, there are simply not enough positions to go around. The crisis is even more severe when the number of accredited positions is considered.

2014 Data

Today’s preliminary match statistics show the following:

  • 4,335 students entered the match, with 3,974 completing the process and submitting a rank-order list
  • 3,501 positions were available through the match, with 2,588 of those positions accredited
  • 3,173 students matched to any internship site, with only 2,474 matching to an accredited internship site

This makes the 2014 match rate for doctoral students to an APA- or CPA- accredited internship 62%. This is unacceptable.

2014 Internship Match Day Blog - screensot w refsThe Crisis Lives On

While this year’s numbers are an improvement from last year, the number of trainees who did not match to an accredited internship position should be of grave concern to the training community. Students from accredited doctoral programs in good standing, who have been deemed ready and qualified to obtain an internship position, should be able to do so.

There is also much more to the internship crisis than the match rate. Qualitative data from APPIC’s 2011 survey on the internship imbalance found that, for students with both positive and negative outcomes, the internship process was experienced as being “extremely stressful,” “overwhelming,” “inhuman,” “demoralizing,” and “traumatizing.” When asked how they felt on match day, responses ranged from “defeated,” “angry,” and “betrayed” to “heartbroken” and “devastated.” The system, with significantly fewer positions than the number of students seeking an internship, takes a substantial emotional toll on applicants.

Things need to change. Now.

APAGS’s Response

APAGS cares deeply about the internship crisis, and it has remained a top priority for the committee over the past several years. Along with key stakeholders in the training community, APAGS continues to tirelessly advocate for solutions to ameliorate the imbalance. Here are some highlights on what is being done:

  • In 2012, APA passed the Internship Stimulus Package, which provided $3 million in grant funding to increase the number of accredited internship positions.
  • APAGS regularly advocates for increased funding for doctoral training through the Graduate Psychology Education (GPE) program and the Health Research Services Administration (HRSA).
  • Working with state psychological associations, APAGS is advocating for interns’ services to become eligible for Medicaid and insurance reimbursement (which could potentially create a sustainable source of funding for creating new positions).
  • Most importantly, APAGS is leading an effort with doctoral training councils to develop a thoughtful and comprehensive plan to solve the internship crisis.

Moving Forward

Unfortunately, change has been slow. The internship crisis is a systemic and multifaceted problem that will require complex solutions to eradicate. However, there are several things that you, as a trainee, can do to help solve the problem.

  • Encourage your doctoral program to create an affiliated internship or develop internship positions in the community. Programs, in this way, would contribute positions and not just applicants to the pool, and would be able to create placements for a number of their own students.
  • Participate in advocacy efforts at both the federal and state level, on issues that affect funding for training and reimbursement options.
  • Finally, APAGS welcomes the input and collaboration of passionate individuals on this important issue. Consider writing a blog post that features your thoughts and ideas.

If you were one of the students who was able to match to an internship today, congratulations. We hope you can celebrate and enjoy your accomplishment. If you were unable to match this time around, please know that you have support. APAGS has resources for students who did not match. As fellow students, it is important to support our colleagues during this time. The internship crisis is a stressful and grueling process for all involved. Many well-qualified and exceptional students do not match through no fault of their own. The system is broken. If we all continue to work together as students and advocates, change is possible. But we must fight for it, fight together, and fight now.

Research Spotlight: Where are they now?

In order to acknowledge all of the great psychology research APAGS members have conducted recently, we asked our funding recipients to share with us all of the important progress they have been able to accomplish with the support of the of APAGS and the APA Science Student Council (SSC).  

In the upcoming months we will be showcasing outstanding students whose research was made possible with the help of APA and SSC funding. The following students have demonstrated the utmost passion and creativity that APA looks for in its members and we love to see how their personal interests are inspiring the entire psychological science community.

 

spikeleeSpike Lee: Mind over Matter

“My colleagues and I have been exploring a number of quirky effects linking the mind and the body. What we consistently find is that social psychological processes are influenced by incidental bodily experiences that have no more than metaphorical relevance. For example,

  • Literally smelling something fishy makes people suspicious and invest less money in a trust game
  • After doing something unethical with their mouth, people want to rinse their “dirty mouth”; but after doing something unethical with their hands, people want to purify their “dirty hands”
  • People can metaphorically “wipe the slate clean” — an antiseptic wipe is sufficient to eliminate the classic free-choice dissonance effect

In addition, a few years back when swine flu was all over the place, we did a couple of fun studies by walking around town, sneezing and coughing. That was enough to change how people wanted the government to spend a billion dollars. The logic wasn’t new but the effects were surprisingly strong, given that it was “just a sneeze.””

 

Logan Fiorella: Learning by Teaching: The Role of Expectations and ExplanationsLogan Fiorella Bio Pic

It is often said that the best way to learn something new is to teach it to someone else.  My research aimed to explore this idea by testing the relative effects of preparing to teach and actually teaching on short- and long-term learning.

  •  In four experiments, college students studied a multimedia lesson on how a scientific process works with the expectation of later teaching or being tested on the material; some participants actually taught the material, whereas others only studied the lesson.
  •  Participants then completed a comprehension test either immediately or following a one-week delay… when tested following a one-week delay, only participants who actually taught the material experienced better learning outcomes.

These findings suggest that while preparing to teach leads to short-term learning benefits, the act of teaching is critical for long-term learning.

 

Michael Alosco: Where the Heart Is

mike alonso photoEarly research of mine has examined the impact of cognitive function on activities of daily living in older adults with heart failure. Support from APAGS has provided the opportunity to expand upon this line of research to help better understand the association between cognitive function and functional independence in cardiovascular disease patients.

  • For instance, recent work from our team suggest that heart failure patients may be at risk for unsafe driving and treatment non-adherence due to impairments in attention and executive function.
  •  In response to these findings, additional studies from our group have sought to identify possible mechanisms for cognitive impairment in persons with cardiovascular disease using advanced neuroimaging.

5 Lessons from Harry Potter to Deal with an Advisor who is Like Voldemort

Mattu, 2012

Mattu, 2011

So what do you do if your advisor is as evil as Voldemort?

Graduate school is full of enough challenges and hoops to deal with a toxic advisor. But just as Harry Potter was able to overcome Voldemort, you can graduate with your degree, if you think about the allies that Harry developed over the course of the series. These allies all taught him something important, and you can too by discovering people who are like them in your life.

1)     Get Hermione on your side – You need a smart peer on your side who can give you feedback on drafts of your proposal, or challenge you with tough questions before your defense. You want someone who can give you truly constructive criticism, without being mean about it.

2)     Find Ron – Everyone needs a best friend, with whom you can commiserate after a tough test or a difficult meeting with your advisor. Social support is so important on the journey to earning your degree! Find someone whom you trust.

El-Ghoroury, 2012

El-Ghoroury, 2012

3)     Seek Dumbledore – As the headmaster of Hogwarts, Dumbledore often went out of his way to protect Harry (even if Harry didn’t know it). It helps to have an ally among the faculty in your department, particularly someone with some power, such as the department chair or the director of training. An ally who is well connected can be a buffer for you in your interactions with your advisor, particularly on committees.

4)     Discover Remus Lupin – While Remus Lupin was Harry’s teacher for one year, the most important thing he taught Harry (the “expect patronus” spell) was something he taught outside of class. Find a mentor who is not at your school who can be a source of support as well as instruction. Perhaps you can find a mentor from your undergraduate institution, or from a conference.

5)     Reach out to Sirius Black – Although his parents were deceased, Harry had a godfather, Sirius, who played an important role of loving Harry. Reach out to your parents or family for support in grad school, even if all they do is empathize with you and tell you it will get better.

If you can find these types of allies, you will be well on your way to handling a tough advisor.

There is just one last question to consider: Is your advisor Voldemort, or is he really Snape?

El-Ghoroury, 2012

El-Ghoroury, 2012

In the books, Harry is convinced that Snape is a bad guy and out to get him, but he learns in the final book that Snape had been protecting him the whole time he was at Hogwarts. Is your advisor really trying to harm you, or are the challenges he’s giving you merely lessons to make you a stronger psychologist?

If these allies don’t help, you may need to learn some spells. Expelliarmus!

 

Three Reasons Why Psychologists Belong in Healthcare Settings

By David Martin, PhD, ABPP (Senior Director, APA Office on AIDS)

For most of my early career as a psychologist, I felt like most professional psychologists IHIV Specialist Cover knew outside my healthcare setting thought what I did wasn’t psychology because (a) it wasn’t traditional psychotherapy, (b) my approach was behavioral, and (c) I was working in a healthcare setting practicing clinical health psychology.

The December 2013 issue of the HIV Specialist provides a great example of why psychologists belong in healthcare settings and how they can and should retain their identity as psychologists even if they aren’t engaging in traditional psychotherapy. While the issue was written for healthcare professionals in HIV care, I encourage you as graduate students in psychology to read it because:

  1. It shows an understanding that mental and physical health are inseparable. It represents an effort to inform (primarily) non-psychologist healthcare providers of the important roles that psychology can and should play in the management of HIV disease, as well as in education and prevention.
  2. It highlights the unique expertise of psychologists in the healthcare setting. Psychologists working in HIV/AIDS have essential skills that benefit the sick. WeHealthcare have expertise extending well beyond traditional psychotherapy into areas such as pain management, treatment adherence, rehabilitation, and other important facets of treatment. Although the articles were intended for non-psychologist healthcare providers, if you think you may be interested in work in HIV/AIDS, these articles may provide you with an overview of some of the issues and help provide additional guidance as you move forward in your education and training.
  3. It shows that psychologists are part of integrated healthcare’s future. Last year, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) reported data demonstrating the vital importance of integrated care in engaging and retaining people with HIV/AIDS in care. The issue illustrates implicitly how psychology can be useful in the context of healthcare in general, highlighting psychology’s role in the provision of integrated care. Many of the issues confronting people with HIV/AIDS mirror those of individuals facing other health challenges, and psychology can and should play a vital role in their management as well. Integrated healthcare is coming; these articles provide an illustration of what integrated healthcare can look like when psychology is included in the mix.

Check out these resources to learn more about psychology’s role in integrated healthcare: