Hi Everyone.
I am New to this forum.I wanted to know something about electives in IM residency..
If I have an option to choose the electives ,what electives shall I do?I mean are there any electives which are kind of needed ,that would strengthen my chance for a fellowship,eg:if research Rotation is optional shall I do it or not? Is doing a rheumatology elective useful?I am interested in gastro or cardio.Shall I do a nephro elective?...does this strengthen my CV.OR is it a must for me to do these, to be able manage patients in general .

any opinions ?

Thanx in advance

i can't offer advice as an incoming intern - but would love to get feedback on the same question - my program gives us 10 wk of elective the intern year, with lots to choose from. i think i'm opting for rotations that i didn't get to my 4th year so i can be more 'well rounded'.

Electives aren't really used to 'pad' a CV. Fellowship programs don't really care which electives you've done during residency, since most residency programs have very similar curricula. As far as which ones to do, it's up to you and your specific interests and strengths/weaknesses.

I would recommend that you do electives in the specialties you think you're interested in, so that you can make sure that you do actually like the field, and to get the needed faculty contacts.
Besides that, you should do electives in areas that you feel you need a little more experience in.

My program required us to rotate through pretty much all the subspecialties. The ones that I found most useful were:
Renal
Pulmonary
Heme
You learn a lot of useful stuff in these electives that you would need to know even if you don't end up going into these specialties.

If you are planning on primary care, then I would also recommend doing Neuro and Derm electives.

As far as some of your other questions, if you're interested in cards and GI, then a rheum elective is not going to be useful to you, since there's very little rheum in these specialties (unless you want to focus on IBD or something like that). As far as a research elective, I would highly recommend it, especially if you develop a research project ahead of time. It can only help you and your CV, as well as increase your contacts in your desired field.