What electives should I take?

[FranticFrancis]

Hello there!
I'm a latin american Medical Student in a 6-year med graduation in of the top universities in south america. At the moment I'm focusing on step 1 and I'm in a constant battle to decide between emergency and anesthesiology. I just recently got a good grasp of the essence of each of this two awesome specialties, but I'll only be able to choose after the three months of electives I'm allowed to take - for the choice is to darn difficult without clinical experience in US, without knowing how I feel in the OR and in the ER.
For my electives I was planning on 1 month in ICU, 1 month in Gas and 1 month in Emergency.
Lets suppose I try matching with scores around 240 for both step 1 and 2 and cs pass 1st time, with average-good LORS, do you think that taking those electives I enlisted would give me a good chance of matching either specialties? Or should I take a leap of faith and decide my specialty ASAP in order to choose electives more properly? If yes for this last question, what electives should I take in case I decide to do EM or Gas?

Thank you all very much, this forum has already helped me alot and I'm hoping someone will answer me.

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[VentJockey]

Are these going to be clinical rotations in the United States? You're going to need that US clinical experience and US letters of recommendation. Certainly would be better to have multiple ones from the specialty you're interested in. But, you do need to decide what specialty you want first. You'd be better off choosing now, if you can, and focusing your USCE on the specialty in which you will be applying. But if you're really not sure what you want to do with the rest of your life, then you'll have to do what you have planned. Remember to apply broadly.

 

[FranticFrancis]

Yes, these clinical rotations will be in the US, I thought I had made myself clear (by the looks of it I haven't haha). Thank you for the reply.

 

[VentJockey]

I should mention that an ICU rotation will be useful for either specialty you choose: anesthesia and ER both require good critical care skills.

 

[FranticFrancis]

I heard (read) that ICU, EM and Gas electives somehow intertwine and all three of them would be a good choice of electives for EM and Gas, once that they are very similar fields in some aspects (even though a lot of SDN members might think otherwise). But the occasion in which this was being hypothesized was not taking in consideration a Non-us IMG with, so far, no USCE. I think I got what you said - it would be in my best interest to choose my future specialty as soon as possible mainly because I could focus the three months that I'm allowed to do electives in gathering good LORs from PDs in my area of interest.