Quote:
Originally Posted by lrkoehle
Maybe Brooother can clarify this, but at most schools you rank where you'd like to do a particular rotation and not everyone gets their top choice. For instance, everyone will likely rank Barrow's really high for neuro, but they can only accommodate a couple students at a time so you may not get to go there. However, since Phx has been relatively small in its first couple of years, this may not be the case now, but I imagine as they expand it will have to happen.
I personally hate driving. The amount of time I spend driving is directly related to the level of frustration I have, so my bias is against driving. With that said, third year is supposed to be the most hectic year in medical school, and any extra drive time would suck. For instance, if you're doing a rotation at Mayo, but your apartment is near the medical school, you're probably looking at a 45+ minute commute (depending on traffic) each way. This may not sound bad now, but if you're coming off a 16+ hour shift at the hospital and you need to study for shelf exams when you get home and you're losing 90+ minutes commuting, you may have a different attitude. Again, maybe Brooother can comment on this as I don't know how often it happens that people commit to a relatively far away rotation and end up miserable due to drive time.
As you pointed out, the many different hospitals is a cool aspect of the Phoenix campus, but I just wanted to bring a different perspective that you may not have considered.
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Yeah, I agree that driving sucks, but I think if you do rotations at other hospitals in Tucson as well as UMC, the driving time spent is probably about the same here, assuming you live near campus. If you live in another part of the valley, yeah, you'll have to travel a bit, but besides our Family Med rotations (which, like Tucson, we can rank preferred sites all over the
state, not just Phoenix) you do most clerkships at hospitals within a few miles of the school campus. I just checked the list, and it looks like a few students have rotations at sites in Scottsdale or Tempe, but the majority of us are within a 5 mi or so radius of the school (at least all of mine are, with the exception of Family Med for which I got Flagstaff, my top choice). We don't ever (unless you set something up yourself, which I have done) rotate at Mayo - you're right, it's quite far away.
Most of us do Neuro at BNI, Peds at PCH, etc., though not everyone and yes, that will probably have to change as the school expands. Not to worry, there are plenty of great hospitals here (as there are in Tucson).