Far away ward rotation, or local preceptor rotation

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Jinxapotato

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Hi all,

So my school is one of those that have many sites all over the country. One of which is rumored to be almost 100% ward based, in a hospital. The other is a 50:50 mix of preceptor:ward based learning. I currently live in the city of 50:50 mix, and if I want to go for the ward based rotation, I will have to move, driving literally all the way across the country.

I have heard sporadically about the good and bad things about both models, but just wanna see what's the general consensus... and decide if I want to trade in my far away ward rotations for a close by 50:50 mix.

BTW I am alone in the US, so I don't have family/SO that have to go through the hassle with me.

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Hi all,

So my school is one of those that have many sites all over the country. One of which is rumored to be almost 100% ward based, in a hospital. The other is a 50:50 mix of preceptor:ward based learning. I currently live in the city of 50:50 mix, and if I want to go for the ward based rotation, I will have to move, driving literally all the way across the country.

I have heard sporadically about the good and bad things about both models, but just wanna see what's the general consensus... and decide if I want to trade in my far away ward rotations for a close by 50:50 mix.

BTW I am alone in the US, so I don't have family/SO that have to go through the hassle with me.

It doesn't seem worth it to move. 100% preceptor based is bad, 100% ward based isn't bad, but I think a mix is probably the best, plus it saves you the hassle of moving. I'd base it on what you plan on doing for residency and your access to away/elective rotations in both cities.
 
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I think a mix is probably the best
Agreed! Doing rotations like FM and Pediatrics in a 100% ward-based setting isn't ideal. But if the ward-based rotations are at a place where you might want to do residency more than in your current town, it's worth considering.
 
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It doesn't seem worth it to move. 100% preceptor based is bad, 100% ward based isn't bad, but I think a mix is probably the best, plus it saves you the hassle of moving. I'd base it on what you plan on doing for residency and your access to away/elective rotations in both cities.

Agreed. If all other factors are equal I'd go with ward-based, but if the 50:50 site is going to be easier/cheaper/other benefits, it's okay to consider that too.

Although, I'll add that you should find out which things aren't hospital based at the 50:50 site. For example, you're a potential OBGYN and their OBGYN is outpatient, or you have dreams of being a neonatologist and their peds is outpatient, that's less than ideal, but if you're not interested in those anyway, it doesn't matter as much.
 
Agreed. If all other factors are equal I'd go with ward-based, but if the 50:50 site is going to be easier/cheaper/other benefits, it's okay to consider that too.

Although, I'll add that you should find out which things aren't hospital based at the 50:50 site. For example, you're a potential OBGYN and their OBGYN is outpatient, or you have dreams of being a neonatologist and their peds is outpatient, that's less than ideal, but if you're not interested in those anyway, it doesn't matter as much.

I think the problem about our 50:50 mix is that you are guaranteed to have IM as ward, but you have much less of a say on what else you want on ward, it's all very .... random, plus you will have to travel between different sites all the time. I am totally ok with ped or FM being preceptor based, as I think those are the more common settings of practice anyway.

I also heard rumors that ward rotation expectation is significantly higher than the preceptor rotations, you often have to work a lot harder, but you learn more from the experience?
 
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