Welcome to the PRITE Fellowship Application Process with the American College of Psychiatrists (The College)!
The Child PRITE Fellowship was (is)the highlight of my psychiatry training. If you enjoy reading, critical and analyticalthinking, academiccollaboration with othertrainees,and working with leaders in childpsychiatry education, do yourself ahuge favor and apply for this fellowship.A lucky two applicants are selected annually to become Child PRITE fellows.
During the two years of this fellowship, you will write, edit, and review new and recycledquestions for the Child PRITE (Psychiatry Resident In-Training Exam). You will have guidance and support from nationally recognized faculty. Over the course of the two-year fellowship, you will attend three, four-day conferences for which the ACPwill reimburse youfor food, plane ride, and hotel!For two of these conferences, you'll meet with the PRITE Editorial Board and Prometric, to review, edit, and finalize the exam. This collaboration is likely to be one of the highest yield didactic experiences of your residency and fellowship, as it was for me. You will also attend The Colleges’ Annual Meeting (four-day scientific program) in February.
Here's an overview of the two years:
The First Academic Year:
September: Specifications for your 24-questionwriting assignmentare provided. You will be assigned topic categories within which to write questions for the exam,e.g. development, psychopathology, treatment modalities, consultation.
October - December:You and two other members of the editorial board are assigned a "Batch Review". The three of you, separately, then together, evaluate new and/or recycled questions from previous exams for use on the upcoming year’s exam. The Batch Review is due in December.
November: 5 of your 24 new questions are due. You will receive feedback and guidance going forward.
By January: Due date for all 24 new questions that you have authored with guidance from faculty board members. Please know that writing good questions for theexam can be hard work; it can take anywhere between 30-90 minutes to write one question. The collaboration and knowledge gained from sifting through literature, reading for specific content,and wording questions are what make this fellowship worth the timeand effort.
January- April: During these months, you will get a chance to review feedbackabout your authored questions, rewrite questions as needed, andresubmit them.
February:College Annual Meeting. The American College of Psychiatrists will PAY YOUR WAY (food, hotel, travel) to the annual organizational conference, which is AMAZING.Before I attended this conference, Ihad never experienced so many sequential lecturers of this caliber, all of whom were engaging, knowledgeable, and relevant speakers. You will also hang out with other PRITE, Child PRITE, and Laughlin fellows in special programming and meet College Members, all of whom are leaders in psychiatry.
June:You will be paired with a board member to review newly written and/or recycled questions with the intent to present them at the PRITE Editorial Board meeting in July.
July: PRITE Editorial Board meeting. The American College of Psychiatrists will PAY YOUR WAY (food, hotel, travel) to the PRITE Editorial Board meeting, at which PRITE/Child PRITE fellows,Board members, faculty, and staff convene to finalize the exam for the following year.
The Second Academic Year:
This year is similar to the first academic year with the following exceptions:
September: This year, you will receive a 40-question writing assignment.Acquired experience from your first year will be invaluable in completing this assignment, which is larger by 66%, and may include writing items to additional content areas such as neurosciences and research. For me, this assignment took me about the same amount of time asthe 24-question assignment.
February: You are welcome to attend The Colleges’ Annual Meeting, but funding for your travel, food, and hotel are only provided during your first year of the fellowship.
Throughout the year: You will serve as a mentor to one ofthe new, first-year Child PRITE fellows.
Please bring your test writing skills, educational expertise, and inner nerdto the Child PRITE Fellowship. I am so happy I did and hope you get to, too!
Sincerely,
Paul Elizondo, DO
Child PRITE Fellow 2015-2017
UCSF Child Psychiatry Fellowship 2015-2017
Chief Fellow, 2016-17