Are clinical rotations extremely competitive?

[devildoc2]

I havent done clinicals yet, and I am curious about how people compete against each other.

I am envisioning a lot of fellow students and me competitng for a very limited number of experiences.

How true is this? Is this something where only the 2 most aggressive students get to do 95% of all clinical work whereas the other 10 of us just do the scut work?

On an internal medicine rotation, how many other students do you work with and how much competition is there? How aggressive do you have to be to get the necessary exposure? Do you have to wash your residents/attendings laundry in the hopes they will "throw you a bone" with a procedure?

Everybody complains about hte "gunner mentality" but how the hell am I supposed to act differently when the nature of clinical rotations DEMANDS that you act like a gunner?

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[CycloneDub]

Clinical experiences vary depending on the school and the residents. Most students get the same experiences, interesting + scut work, at an individual school.
There are always a few who are going to be 'gunners', who try and take as many of the interesting experiences as possible, rather than share. They usually think that doing themselves a favor by showing how motivated they are. But remember that everyone above you has been through this before and can usually spot a gunner a mile away.
Clinicals are partly based on your enthusiam, partly your knowledge, but a big part of them is your ability to work as part of the team. And gunners who step over their medical student colleagues end up looking bad in this respect. So those who feel that need to compete can get away with it or can shoot themselves in the foot, depending on the team dynamics. Just try and surround yourself with other decent medical students (if you have the option) for your rotations and the chances of dealing with this are minimalized.
Clinicals are subjective. Just don't let the subjectivity of the evaluations interfere with the day to day fun of being in the hospital and talking with patients.


CycloneDub

Originally posted by devildoc2
I havent done clinicals yet, and I am curious about how people compete against each other.

I am envisioning a lot of fellow students and me competitng for a very limited number of experiences.

How true is this? Is this something where only the 2 most aggressive students get to do 95% of all clinical work whereas the other 10 of us just do the scut work?

On an internal medicine rotation, how many other students do you work with and how much competition is there? How aggressive do you have to be to get the necessary exposure? Do you have to wash your residents/attendings laundry in the hopes they will "throw you a bone" with a procedure?

Everybody complains about hte "gunner mentality" but how the hell am I supposed to act differently when the nature of clinical rotations DEMANDS that you act like a gunner?

 

[Blade28]

I was also worried about super-competitiveness during rotations...but I hardly ever see my classmates! At most, we're in teams with 2 med students (and interns, uppers, etc.), but even then we're split up a lot of the time, seeing different patients. May be different from med school to med school though.

 

[scrub monkey]

How true is this? Is this something where only the 2 most aggressive students get to do 95% of all clinical work whereas the other 10 of us just do the scut work?

whoa. 95% of the clinical work is scut! running around and doing little things for patients - that's what's special about being a med student. they have time to do these things and to actually care for people. never complain about scut! complaining = poor grade. interns and residents are loaded with work. always volunteer to help out with the little menial tasks. you'll make your residents much happier to have you on the team, and much more willing to teach you. clinical rotations are not competitive at all. but the "gunners" are the ones that run the scut, run lots of scut, and that's why they are actual useful med students on the team.

my 2 cents