4th year spring electives.

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pixella

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I'm curious to hear people's philosophy on 4th year spring electives. There are 3 schools of thought that I'm aware of:

-Prepare for intern year/residency
-Do something that interests you that you won't have another chance to see (i.e. outside of the field you are entering)
-Get as much free time as possible and RELAX

In my particular situation, for various reasons I haven't done anything clinically rigorous since August.
 
Spring = 3 months = 3 elective --> one real work, one interesting, one vacation.
 
For me, 1 = dumb med school requirement that is none of the above, 1 = vacation, 1 = ???
 
This is a personal choice. It also, I think, depends on what you plan on going into. My personal thought is to relax. At that point you've been working your ass of for 3.5 years to get a good residency and you're going to work your ass for the next 4+ years. Take a break.
 
Well yes, obviously a personal decision with no clear right or wrong. I was just curious as to other people's opinions and rationales. It's a moot point now (for me), since I already made up my mind. For the record, I'm going with interesting, somewhat chill, and definitely nothing I will ever get exposed to again.
 
Aside from a week of ACLS training and an occasional meeting with my M1 preceptees, I'm currently done with med school. I front-loaded the hell out of the year so I'd have a nice stretch off to do whatever before residency. However, I'm definitely going to be dumb as crap when I start back up. I figure I can mask it for a bit and pass it off as inability to work the computer system. 😛
 
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