In fact, Dr. McCahill is dual boarded in psychiatry and family medicine which allows for integration of both disciplines while at clinic. Both departments have made efforts to make us feel at home. I enjoy being with both family medicine residents and with psychiatry residents. I believe one advantage to being a combined resident is that you get to know so many of the other residents in other fields that it makes consulting with them easier. One of the psychiatry professors told me an analogy about residency, which I will never forget.
Residency is like oil painting.
During the training, one learns to identify what the different colors are, what the canvas looks like, what the brushes do . This is how I now view the combined program. Now that I am in the second year, I can almost recognize all the primary colors. There are pluses and minuses in all programs. On the psychiatry side, it is one of the top research programs which allows us as residents to hear from those experts at the front line of their field.