3rd Year Scheduling

[JTWheaton]

Hey All,

I am pretty sure I want to do ortho, and I currently am submitting my preference for order of 3rd year rotations. So I have two questions:

1) Should I make sure I devote a whole month to do ortho (by deferring family med or neuro) or is it fine if I do a 2-week block within my surgery rotation?
2) Should I make sure I do the surgery rotation before doing ortho?

Thanks!

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[bleeker10]

Hey All,

I am pretty sure I want to do ortho, and I currently am submitting my preference for order of 3rd year rotations. So I have two questions:

1) Should I make sure I devote a whole month to do ortho (by deferring family med or neuro) or is it fine if I do a 2-week block within my surgery rotation?

I think any exposure (2 or 4 weeks) in ortho would be good to help you decide. Would 4 weeks be better? Sure but that's not always an option. If you can do two weeks during your surgery block, then do it and save that other month for another specialty in case you don't like ortho. If you decide you like ortho and want more experience, than use that month for an ortho elective. I'm saying this as someone who tried to do an elective in ortho but wasn't able to so I'm doing two weeks during my surgery rotation starting on Monday. I'll let you know if it helped solidify ortho as my specialty of choice after my two weeks are up.

2) Should I make sure I do the surgery rotation before doing ortho?

Thanks!

If you are going to do two weeks during your surgery rotation, then doing gen surg first would probably be better (get you acclimated to the OR, how to scrub, etc). If you are thinking of doing the month by deferring another rotation, then it may not matter. Is your surgery rotation before or after the month you would chose for ortho?