4th Year Schedule

[air bud]

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Could you guys elaborate on fourth year? How much time is there typically between externships, or does it vary? For those of you with significant others that were a plane ride away, how often did you see them? I am not so interested in the day to day stuff, I will learn that in time, I am just trying to get an idea of how things flow so I can better explain to my wife.

 

[DPMer]

Could you guys elaborate on fourth year? How much time is there typically between externships, or does it vary? For those of you with significant others that were a plane ride away, how often did you see them? I am not so interested in the day to day stuff, I will learn that in time, I am just trying to get an idea of how things flow so I can better explain to my wife.

4th year is when ALL the lectures from 2nd and 3rd year come to life in ALL your clinical rotations. You will be amazed! 4th year is a glimpse into intern/residency life (long hectic work hours with low pay). Also, you will wake up as early as 4 am and come home as late as 1 pm the NEXT day (on calls and post calls). Your wife needs to adjust to this. Read the following books in 4th year:

1) Pocket Bates
2) Pocket Podiatrics
3) Presby Manual
4) PI Manual
5) McGlamery text book
6) Medicine Recall
7) Harrisons text (Internal Medicine)

These 7 books will help you prepare for part 2 and part 3 boards, residency interviews, and rotations. 4th year is when you start applying for residency through CASPR. You will go to Texas for residency interviews in January of your 4th year. Your wife can come (you two work it out). You may travel from state to state depending on which hospitals you choose to rotate for your podiatry months. Living arrangements with friends or family have to be arranged between you and your wife. Read during spare time, practice suturing and instrument and hand ties (1 hand and 2 hand ties) during spare time as well. You will be surprised how valuable hand ties and suturing are in your rotations. Late February will be crunch time to study for part 2 boards that you take in early March. March is that month of tense drama: 1) taking part 2 boards 2) seeing Match results from residency interviews/Scramble and 3) part 2 board scores in the mail. The end of 4th year is nice: Senior Roast and Senior Class trip. Every podiatry school does this in 4th year in either late April or early May. Middle/late May is graduation and you becoming officially a doctor. Early June is when you take part 3 boards, if your residency program you matched with requires it. hope this helps you. good luck.

 

[jonwill]

Could you guys elaborate on fourth year? How much time is there typically between externships, or does it vary? For those of you with significant others that were a plane ride away, how often did you see them? I am not so interested in the day to day stuff, I will learn that in time, I am just trying to get an idea of how things flow so I can better explain to my wife.

It all just depends on how you set it up. Some programs are very specific on when you show up (like 1st of the month) but I think most are pretty accomodating. I think I set it up so I started on the 1st Monday of the month and then went 4 weeks. I did set a few of my rotations up so I had a week in between which was nice. Some rotations were far from my family and some were close to or with my family. It just depends on how you set it all up. Most programs are very understanding if you take a weekend to see your significant other as long as you put in some weekend time and do your part. I'd talk with the residents of the programs that you will be at. At my program we really didn't care as long as each student took a weekend or two and some call during the week.

 

[ldsrmdude]

It all just depends on how you set it up. Some programs are very specific on when you show up (like 1st of the month) but I think most are pretty accomodating. I think I set it up so I started on the 1st Monday of the month and then went 4 weeks. I did set a few of my rotations up so I had a week in between which was nice. Some rotations were far from my family and some were close to or with my family. It just depends on how you set it all up. Most programs are very understanding if you take a weekend to see your significant other as long as you put in some weekend time and do your part. I'd talk with the residents of the programs that you will be at. At my program we really didn't care as long as each student took a weekend or two and some call during the week.

I don't know if we are going to have as much flexibility as you did with setting up your clerkships. Starting this next year, they are having a national clerkship calander that will dictate when clerkship months start and end: http://www.casprcrip.org/html/clerkships/pdf/2011-2012 National Clerkship Calendar-drft.pdf
I am sure that some directors will be accomodating if they know you are traveling from a far away clerkship and need to either come a day or two late or leave a day or two early, but in general, things will be set as far as start date and end date for us after 2011.

 

[dpmgrad]

I don't know if we are going to have as much flexibility as you did with setting up your clerkships. Starting this next year, they are having a national clerkship calander that will dictate when clerkship months start and end: http://www.casprcrip.org/html/clerkships/pdf/2011-2012 National Clerkship Calendar-drft.pdf
I am sure that some directors will be accomodating if they know you are traveling from a far away clerkship and need to either come a day or two late or leave a day or two early, but in general, things will be set as far as start date and end date for us after 2011.

I am glad to see that there is a national clerkship calendar for the start and end dates of clerkship month. Some schools (such as Scholl) really have weird start and end dates. Due to each school having different start and end dates, my program may sometimes have too many students at a given time due to the overlap of students from the month before and after secondary to different start and end dates.