<p>I’m afraid I don’t know much about the training/education required for other health fields other than for medical specialities. Child psychiatry requires a two year fellowship on top of the 4 years for general psych. Depending on how you do this you can sometimes get by with only one extra year for child psych. In that case you use your last year in general psych as your first year for child psych, for a total of 5 years of training, instead of six.</p>
<p>Re failing medical school. My experience is it is very hard to fail out of medical school. If you start doing badly the faculty really works to bring you up to speed. Despite the fact that it’s really difficult, and when I went they really put you through the ringer psychologically, deep down, the school did not want you to fail. </p>
<p>There were a few people who left medical school in the middle of it. However, it seemed that these people left for personal reasons (one guy who wanted to be a MD on a commune left when they insisted he shower while in clinical rotations. He decided that was against his principles.) Another, sadly, left for medical reasons. </p>
<p>The really odd thing is that a rather large minority of my classmates are no longer practicing medicine. I’d say 15% - - which is huge I think. Many who are still in medicine are unhappy (we recently re-connected via the web.) Food for thought, though I think it’s mainly because everone looks over their shoulder and thinks others have had an easier time in life. I actually like practicing my brand of medicine, though like everyone, I have my bad days.</p>