Do you feel you received an excellent education on each of your rotations? Are there any you absolutely hated?
Patient care is the goal. Your education is not. You need to remember that as there are many rotations were you don't exist. You need to accept this and be ready to mentally take note of confusing things or items you want clarification on. Ask about them later, but if they're simple or can easily be looked up, do that. Ask questions that split from the norm and can provoke a good discussion between all levels on the team.
I feel like there is no real difference from anywhere else. Third year is a self-learning process. The rest of your education will involve a lot of learning on your own part and rotations are NO different. By and large, most services are good about asking questions to provoke a discussion rather than flat our nervousness and fear. There's still some of that though, service dependent. The better residents will expect you to know the basics and then ask you specifics on procedural aspects to see if you understand why a particular service does something one way. This is far better in my opinion as most of this is institution specific anyway.
OB/GYN has great didactic sessions... other services don't... whatever. On general IM rounds, you should be prepared for some great "teaching". Be prepared to work if you go to the VA for Surgery.
Bottom line: You get in what you put out for education.
How far do you have to travel, on average, for your rotations?
This having to travel all over for everything is blown out of proportion. You can easily have 0 away time third year if you're smart and/or trade. The farthest you'll have to go is WV, TN border, or the eastern shore, but that's only for 3-4 weeks. Only surgery, psych, peds, and ob/gyn have anyway away time outside of FM/Ambulatory IM (IM might have Salem again, but that's doubtful) and all of the sites are within two hours. Honestly, you do more when you are away from UVA.
Do they tend to be crowded?
No. OB/GYN maybe a little bit. Aways at other hospitals can be, but that's because there are students from other schools at these sites.
What would you improve about them?
Ability to choose IM services would be a great starting point. Reduction of surgery to 6 weeks would be chill. You shouldn't try and get to involved, but you shouldn't throw away advantages to practice presentations and such. If a rotation starts doing that, then bring it up and talk to them as that part benefits your learning. On the flip side, don't take it too personally if nothing comes of it as Patient care is #1. I honestly don't think about this one that much.
Either way,
Thanks!
So you should still exercise some common sense even though it's overall a very safe town.
Last year they took more OOS than instate
Hopefully they still serve the peach cobbler...
