Good electives for a medical student?

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Hello all,

I am starting my OB rotation in another week. In addition to the 6 weeks of typical inpatient OB and GYN, my school requires 4 weeks of elective time in one of the following areas: Gyn onc, MFM, REI, and ambulatory gyn.

As someone who is still pretty early on in their clinical years (and who hasn't crossed off OB/GYN from my list of specialties I definitely don't want to pursue for residency), does anyone have any recommendations for what electives may be good to see?

Any input would be great. Thanks in advance!

Originally Posted by CBG23

Hello all,

I am starting my OB rotation in another week. In addition to the 6 weeks of typical inpatient OB and GYN, my school requires 4 weeks of elective time in one of the following areas: Gyn onc, MFM, REI, and ambulatory gyn.

As someone who is still pretty early on in their clinical years (and who hasn't crossed off OB/GYN from my list of specialties I definitely don't want to pursue for residency), does anyone have any recommendations for what electives may be good to see?

Any input would be great. Thanks in advance!

MFM - It's kind of like the internal medicine of the OB world. There will be few, if any surgeries. There may or may not be deliveries or C-sections depending on MFMs. It's a pretty good rotation for learning more about prenatal care.

REI - This rotation was kind of boring at my school. An extremely high number of patients didn't want to have a student in the room. When they did, it was strictly a shadowing experience. It may be different in your school, but ask around first.

Gyn Onc - I didn't do a rotation in this subspecialty. I'm told that it was a lot of secretarial work for the 4th year sub-I's at my school. The surgeries can be pretty cool but long. At our school, the MS3s get priority in scrubbing in for surgeries.

Ambulatory OB/GYN - I found this to be a useful rotation and you really learn how a basic OB visit goes. It's useful for getting a grasp on prenatal testing.

Urogynecology - The surgeries generally don't take too long. It's relatively easy to get a decent grasp on the limited amount of material. The hours are generally pretty decent since there's no such thing as emergency incontinence. I'm a little biased here because I had a great attending and am considering it for fellowship (and I haven't even started residency yet!)

Family Planning/Reproductive Health - This was a thoroughly enjoyable rotation for me. It helps to be pro-choice here, but there's still plenty of room to learn even if you're ardently pro-life. No one will make you take part in an abortion or even be in the room. If you're politically-minded, this rotation can have some extra added attraction beyond the medical stuff. You'll also learn a lot about contraception.

Ambulatory GYN will afford you skills you'll use if you were to end up in Internal Medicine, Family Practice, or Emergency Medicine. It is also useful for Step 2 and 3. The others are subspecialty rotations and likely better for OBGYN applicants who are trying to secure letters of recommendation.

Good luck!

Thanks for the input all! I selected Ambulatory gyn as my first choice - hopefully, I'll be lucky and get it