4th year schedule-sub I or no?

[tonyrob]

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I'm a 3rd year trying to figure out my 4th year schedule. Should I do a sub-I at all in 4th year? I think it would be useful since most psych programs have you do some med or pedi months during the intern year.

What other rotations should I consider doing? I know you're not supposed to replicate your intern year. I'm going to be doing 2 rotations early on that I hope will get me strong rec letters, and one of these is a psych roations. I'm also doing a couple of infectious disease rotations. Any advice?

 

[Big Lebowski]

I'm a 3rd year trying to figure out my 4th year schedule. Should I do a sub-I at all in 4th year? I think it would be useful since most psych programs have you do some med or pedi months during the intern year.

What other rotations should I consider doing? I know you're not supposed to replicate your intern year. I'm going to be doing 2 rotations early on that I hope will get me strong rec letters, and one of these is a psych roations. I'm also doing a couple of infectious disease rotations. Any advice?

I am assuming you are going into psych (though he have not overtly stated so). I think a sub-I in medicine is a good move. Looking back, I wish I had taken more medicine electives my 4th year of med school, as it is quite limited during the first year of residency.

 

[Strap]

Most schools require you to do at least one sub-I, and usually they make you do it in one of the primary care fields (IM, Peds, Surgery).

That being said, I would strongly consider doing an extra rotation or sub-I in Psych if that's what you're interested in doing. If for nothing else, to get a letter of rec from the attending.

 

[Antigone]

I highly recommend doing a psych sub-I for the letter of rec. Doing my required sub-I in medicine early for the same reason also worked really well for me.

 

[Hurricane]

My school requires two medicine sub-Is, so I didn't really have a choice, but I think that doing one is definitely a plus. (Two, not so much 😛) Many psych programs want a letter from a non-psych faculty member, and having a good letter from your sub-I shows that you can function like a medicine intern, which you will have to do during part of your psych residency.

I'm not in residency yet, so I can't say if the rest of my 4th year electives were useful or not, but my second sub-I is in the ICU, which gives me a chance to learn a lot of procedures, which might be useful during that ER rotation I have to do as an intern. I also did neuro and a couple psych rotations, including a child psych rotation early on, to see if I liked it as much as I thought I did, so I could focus on applying to programs that had child fellowships available. Another potentially useful rotation might be endocrine, since our meds tend to give people diabetes and all. (I was going to do that one in May, but then the school said I was signed up for two many credits, so I'm taking the time off instead - I'm not that dedicated!)

I also did a few months of fMRI research. My MD/PhD program requires that we do a research project in our 4th year. Which worked out well because I scheduled part of it during interviews. It's nice to have a rotation with a really flexible schedule when you're off traveling so much. And since I was signed up for research rotations those months (rather than taking the time off) that allows me to take May off for packing up my stuff 🙂