4th year electives for anesthesia

[madog2020]

I'm in this position now making changes to my 4th yearschedule and would like any suggestions. I currently have my home anesthesia, 1 away, medicine AI, ICU elective, cardiology elective, and emergency med (all required). I already have sleep med (planning to change, heard from 4th years it's not that good), ICU procedures (essentially night shift, 4th years said it's ok), and online anatomy. I'm thinking of adding online radiology but I still need some more stuff. I'm currently looking at patient safety (essentially medicine AI but no residents, and work on QI/safety stuff, from 7-4, potential letter?), ultrasound, epilepsy clinic (was suggested it might be useful), and telehealth (8-4, personal interest but not sure what it's about, waiting to hear back.) I think it's possible to do more anatomy/radiology too, but wanted to hear some thoughts. I should be able to do independent study in anesthesia (my understanding is I could do whatever so long as I do "40 hours of work a week" and I don't have any research so that was also a thought, but it would only be a month and idk if anything meaningful could come from that). I know I'm overthinking this, but I have this paranoia that having 3 months of online electives gives the wrong impression.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Tenk]

Honestly, nobody really cares about what you do in fourth year outside of an AI or two. What you need to do though is find whatever rotations give the most time off and care the least if you show up and stack those all around Nov-Jan for interviews. For my school it was actually plastic surgery. One of our surgeons was also one of the Deans and man she was super awesome and didn’t care if we didn’t show up for interviews. You wouldn’t think that a plastics rotation would be ultra chill but it was. Talk to your upper classmen about what rotations are like this and just stack tons of that so you can have free time but still look productive on paper.

 

[mrbreakfast]

M4 is split into roughly 3 parts:
1) July to end of Sept: take step 2, take any in-specialty rotations, get your letters lined up.
2) Mid-Oct to mid-Jan: interview, so basically take stuff you can miss
3) Late Jan to whenever you can take vacation time for the rest of med school: any other requirements you have, otherwise easy stuff

So, get your letters lined up (ideally all anesthesia), then take stuff you can miss in the winter. Period. Online, whatever.

I already have sleep med

Every med student I know who took sleep med found it boring.

epilepsy clinic (was suggested it might be useful)

.....by whom? You probably aren't going to like this. You can see if your program does IONM and shadow.

One of my best buddies in med school ended up doing anesthesia so I have an idea of what he took. I would say:
Do a medicine AI in the spring as one of your last rotations. Just a general service.
Related (for personal benefit): crit care/SICU, pain, maybe PM&R if your program does procedures.
Chill stuff: anything online, anything that involves practicing procedures, independent study, research.

 

[Angus Avagadro]

Consider taking a pulmonary elective at some time.