Upon completion of their training, our graduates are highly valued and perform extraordinarily well. Our residents find that their training allows them to be highly successful clinicians and academic psychiatrists.

Opportunities after residency

Graduates of our program are recognized as superbly trained clinicians, educators, and critical thinkers. Private practitioners and recruiters call us frequently to inquire about the availability of our senior residents regarding job offers.

Our graduates go on to pursue a variety of careers in patient care, research, and education in both the private and public sectors as well as academia. While some residents stay in St. Louis, others choose to relocate. We support our graduates and help connect them with alumni across the country.

Breakdown of graduate career choices immediately following graduation over the past 10 years:

Post-Graduate PlansPercentage
Clinical Practice35%
Clinical Fellowship35%
Academics20%
Research Fellowship10%

Clinical practice

In general, a plurality of our graduates, about 35%, immediately enter into a full-time clinical setting involving private practice, public psychiatry, or a mixture.

Clinical fellowship / subspecialty training

Most of our residents do not do fellowship training because they can obtain extensive subspecialty training here during their PGY4 research and elective time.  Those who do opt to pursue additional training, about 35%, will do it either in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry or Forensic Psychiatry.

Washington University psychiatry residents who know they want to specialize in child and adolescent psychiatry will typically transfer to our fellowship program for PGY4.

Academics

Some residents, about 20%, join a medical school faculty in a clinical educator role. In this role, some emphasize clinical care while others become involved in medical school or residency education and administration. A role as a member of a clinical research team is also possible.

Research training

Other graduates, about 10%, decide they want a career emphasis in clinical or basic research. To become a successful investigator, a graduate spends several years after residency learning research methodology. This can be accomplished through a fellowship/instructorship position where about 80% time is devoted to research training and about 20% time is dedicated to clinical responsibilities.

View our post-graduate research opportunities »