Where is the best place to find housing during your month long rotations?
4th year rotation housing
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Airbnb.
Friends and family.
Ask coordinator setting up clerkship see if any hospital workers are renting rooms
Friends and family.
Ask coordinator setting up clerkship see if any hospital workers are renting rooms
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I stayed with residents at most of my clerk months. I found that through the clerkship coordinator or direct via residents/networking.
I think I did that 3/5 clerkships, and the other 2/5 had free hospital-arranged housing in dorms or whatever. My school didn't do core rotations and has all of that med/surg/ER stuff local to the school during 3rd year.
I did the same for clerks at my program when I was a resident (both core and month)... rented them a room for a fair price. I got a lot of offers for LDS teachings lessons out of the deal
A lot of the better programs that have clerk/core students every month have at least one or two residents who have a rental or purchase house bigger than they need and use it for that purpose. Some residents do it by design from the start, others just realize you're never home as a resident and they don't need the space, and others (me) have things change with roommate leaves, divorce/separate, etc. It ends up win/win for sure... cheaper than hotel or BnB and helps the resident pay rent also. As was mentioned, you just ask the clerkship coordinator or program admin assist. Even more valuable than just saving a couple hundred bucks, you can get good insight from the resident on their program and the city by staying with them, meet more people, find the occasional good party, etc that way. I took some of the clerks with me to the parks, gym, shooting range, downtown, meet-ups with other residents, etc etc that they might not have found on their own.
I think I did that 3/5 clerkships, and the other 2/5 had free hospital-arranged housing in dorms or whatever. My school didn't do core rotations and has all of that med/surg/ER stuff local to the school during 3rd year.
I did the same for clerks at my program when I was a resident (both core and month)... rented them a room for a fair price. I got a lot of offers for LDS teachings lessons out of the deal
A lot of the better programs that have clerk/core students every month have at least one or two residents who have a rental or purchase house bigger than they need and use it for that purpose. Some residents do it by design from the start, others just realize you're never home as a resident and they don't need the space, and others (me) have things change with roommate leaves, divorce/separate, etc. It ends up win/win for sure... cheaper than hotel or BnB and helps the resident pay rent also. As was mentioned, you just ask the clerkship coordinator or program admin assist. Even more valuable than just saving a couple hundred bucks, you can get good insight from the resident on their program and the city by staying with them, meet more people, find the occasional good party, etc that way. I took some of the clerks with me to the parks, gym, shooting range, downtown, meet-ups with other residents, etc etc that they might not have found on their own.
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I did Airbnb for a few, stayed with family for a couple, and one had provided housing for students.
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(a) Stayed in some hospital dorms. This is great, especially if free, but stupid stuff happens in dorms and hospitals at night. ie. fire alarms. One place I stayed had these very nefarious fire alarms that would do way more than ring. They'd suggest something was very much on fire and then the staff would have to false alarm it. Another place had people who couldn't stop lighting candles in their rooms. Ended up standing outside the dorm at midnight in light rain at least 3+ times because someone's candle set-off the smoke alarm. This was very problematic because I had an illegal minifridge and a bunch of other stuff so whenever the alarm went off I had to hide my own crime scene.
(b) Used some medical student housing website - best thing I found. $300 to stay for a month in some IM resident's guest room. Pristine but strange. The couple in question had clearly gotten married within the last year and then each of them had put on 100+ lbs easy since then. I came home one day and the wife was teaching the husband how to inject insulin. He, the newfound diabetic, ate the icecream I left in the freezer a week later. Not kidding.
(c) Did an airbnb at a guy's house for a month. Kind of weird. No dishwasher, but located in a rich neighborhood in St. Paul - got a lot of walking in. Literally visited Minneapolis a few years later and went back to the area I'd stayed in to see stuff.
(d) Did an airbnb in the nastiest, nastiest, most disgusting apartment on airbnb. If someone will let you stay in their place in New Orleans for a month for $400 there will be a catch. In this case black mold growing in the hallways, a pile of dirty clothes 8 feet high in the living room, roaches everywhere. Interestingly my room was the nicest room. My wife came to visit me - she shows up and says I'm not staying here. I said - if you'll stay here I won't say a word about how much money you spend on this trip. She made me eat those words.
(e) Stayed at some guy's house that was recommend by the program. No wifi. Made studying/reading up very difficult.
(b) Used some medical student housing website - best thing I found. $300 to stay for a month in some IM resident's guest room. Pristine but strange. The couple in question had clearly gotten married within the last year and then each of them had put on 100+ lbs easy since then. I came home one day and the wife was teaching the husband how to inject insulin. He, the newfound diabetic, ate the icecream I left in the freezer a week later. Not kidding.
(c) Did an airbnb at a guy's house for a month. Kind of weird. No dishwasher, but located in a rich neighborhood in St. Paul - got a lot of walking in. Literally visited Minneapolis a few years later and went back to the area I'd stayed in to see stuff.
(d) Did an airbnb in the nastiest, nastiest, most disgusting apartment on airbnb. If someone will let you stay in their place in New Orleans for a month for $400 there will be a catch. In this case black mold growing in the hallways, a pile of dirty clothes 8 feet high in the living room, roaches everywhere. Interestingly my room was the nicest room. My wife came to visit me - she shows up and says I'm not staying here. I said - if you'll stay here I won't say a word about how much money you spend on this trip. She made me eat those words.
(e) Stayed at some guy's house that was recommend by the program. No wifi. Made studying/reading up very difficult.
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I've pretty much done airbnb for all of my externships. 1 program had gross housing with lots of bugs so I didn't want to stay there. One other program offered very nice housing for free (took them up on it). None of the programs had any residents offering housing sadly. One program usually had a general surgery resident who offered housing for females, but she her place was full that month. To be honest, just reading the title of this thread made me roll my eyes. Not because you asked the question, but because of the ridiculous amount of money I have spent this year on externships (basically March - December). I am all sorts of salty about it. If I had known it would have been this bad, I would have taken my chances with the bugs at that one program. If I could do it all over again, I would have scheduled programs in places where I had friends living... or at least one program in my home state. Live and learn.
