Patrick O'Connell, PGY-2

Hello! I'm Patrick, a psychiatry PGY-2 from Utah. I studied psychology during undergrad, did research with monkeys, but ultimately realized I was interested in mental health after getting a job in residential treatment. I got the job during college but loved it enough to stay there after graduation until deciding four years later to go to medical school at the University of Utah.

That brings me to how I ended up in Georgia. Honestly, I think most residents that choose to train at Emory want to come out of training feeling like well-rounded psychiatrists. I was drawn to the opportunity to work with diverse patient populations, to stretch my abilities and grow as a person. The residents I spoke to during my interviews at Emory seemed to have a higher level of confidence having worked in a variety of environments and with all kinds of patients. Developing that kind of confidence/competency was very important to me, so choosing Emory just made sense.

Second year of residency has us mainly doing VA and Emory inpatient, a few months of CL at Grady and Emory, the Addiction clinic and consults at the VA, and some weeks of electives. I started on CL at Grady, which has me waking up around 7:15 (or later because I value sleeping in until the last possible moment), getting in at 8:00, seeing consults, rounding at 10:00, getting lunch, seeing any new consults/doing teaching, and leaving around 3:00 or 4:00pm. If you’re the chief of the day and have the pager, you sign it out at 4:30. VA inpatient and the Addiction weeks are similar (8:00am until 4:00pm ish), unless you’re on short call, in which case you’re there until 8:00pm. I think I’m on short call between two and four days a month, so it’s really not bad. We get most weekends off during the VA half of the year, unless you’re on nights (eight weeks total, spread out over the course of the year), in which case you’re on six of seven nights. Finally, I’ve got a psychotherapy half day one day a week which involves seeing patients (in person or virtual) and doing supervision with the outpatient therapy chiefs and my supervisor.

We live in Midtown/Old Fourth Ward decently close to Piedmont Park and the Beltline. A lot of people in my class live nearby which makes getting together to eat somewhere pretty easy. I bought a bike when I got here but also value my life too much to take it on the road with Atlanta drivers. I pretty much just take it out on the beltline or on the bike paths when I feel up to facing Atlanta heat. Outside of Atlanta are some interesting hikes. I’m kind of a hike snob coming from Utah/the Pacific Northwest, but if you go like an hour and half/two hours north of Atlanta you hit some pretty cool trails around the start of the Appalachian trail. Blood Mountain and Yonah Mountain come to mind as higher tier hikes we’ve done. If places called “Blood Mountain” aren’t your jam there is a concession stand at the top of Stone Mountain that sells soft pretzels and slushies, which was a new experience of nature for me. I’m also a huge nerd and pretty early on scoped out the local game stores to play board games/Magic the Gathering, but usually head up to Marietta because there aren’t any in Atlanta itself.

As someone who went through the interview process virtually, I can say it was pretty difficult to get a feel for programs without being able to visit them, and it seemed like I had to make decisions based on my interactions with very few people in each program. It really helped reaching out to some of my interviewers who connected me with residents that shared some of my interests. It can be nerve-racking reaching out, but the way I see it, I wasn’t interested in a program that didn’t have anyone I could communicate with—so reach out!