Should I schedule this SICU month in Feb of 4th year?

[Chocolateagar04]

Hey guys,

I wanted to ask this from a future Neurology resident perspective.

I am scheduled for an SICU rotation in February but I am not having second thoughts especially from everyone saying that I should just enjoy 4th year because intern year and PGY2 Neuro year are brutal.

I wanted to sign up for it originally so that I am not overwhelmed my intern year as well as my neuro critical care rotations during my PGY 2-4 years.

Should I stick with this SICU rotation or should I just do a Neurosurgery rotation instead or something? I am just so scared of not knowing anything my intern year. I feel like all this even basic info sometimes has hemorrhaged out of my brain after doing all these neuro electives.

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[typhoonegator]

My advice would be to take the SICU rotation. SICU is awesome, and you will learn (or re-learn) a lot of basic physiology in addition to management of acute disasters. You'll get plenty of exposure to neurosurgical decision-making during residency, and that won't help you manage a peri-septic patient on the wards next year.

There are those on this forum who would disagree with me and tell you to take more neurology instead. I'll leave that up to you to decide.

 

[fanondelaterre]

Ya, I agree with the fat dude trying to lick the fan. ICU is an incredible place to learn; albeit intimidating. But as a medical student, the pressure should be off of you. As an intern, I traded ward months for more ICU months with my fellow interns because the level of learning from the patient presentations was that much better as was the teaching. 4th year should be a relaxing year but one month of good old fashioned medicine doesn't hurt. Will you be ok not having done an ICU month as a medical student? Without a doubt. In june, most likely you will start getting nervous about next month and the beginning of intern year and that will likely be the case regardless of what your schedule looked like your fourth year. But being able to see management of commonly seen presentations of decompensating patients (hypotension, sepsis, status epilepticus, GI bleeds, ARDS) will probably help you understand the larger picture that much more while reinforcing your understanding of various organ systems.

good luck.