4th Yr Externs

[rpames]

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I was just wondering how all the schools are going about picking externs for their students. At ICO they are doing a lottery system for each quarter. If you pick #1 you get first choice, if you pick 154, you get last choice. At the surface that sounds like a fair way to do it...right? Well, there is no consideration for married students so I could get stuck doing all my externs out of state and having to pay two apartment's rent. Or, my wife could quit her job and follow me around...like that is going to happen.

The other problem we have with it is how we are going to have to choose our site. Lets say that we have picked our sites for the first 3 quarters, then when we get to the last site picks, all the low vision sites are picked and I still need a LV site. Well now all my picks for the previous quarters will have to be switched around. So now, after the switch, one of the sites that someone wanted is freed up b/c I had to give it up. That site that opened up would have changed how someone else would have chosen their sites, it is like dominoes.

Last year the person in charge did a match system where the students listed their choices in order, and the person went through and matched them with the sites. She also did some fudging by placing students at sites that she knew they would do well at.

So basically, how do the other OD school do it?

 

[Rosanna]

Hi rpames:

I’m sorry to hear that you are going to externships away from where your wife is.

For us, we have three lotteries to pick our externships. The first lottery is just to pick a template. There are 5 sessions during externships which have different combinations of when you are IN (Eye clinic at UCBSO or other facilities nearby the school) and when you are OUT. You have to be IN 2 times and OUT 3 times. We had to pick a lottery number from 1-59 (number of people in our class). We rank in order our preference which templates we would like and that would be chosen for us after the second lottery.

The second lottery is for people that want to go to special OUT rotation. These are considered “special” since a lot of people have interest in them or they require you to stay for at least two OUT rotations. In this group are the rotations at Hawaii, Tacoma (free housing), and Bascom Palmer in FL. Not everyone goes for the special rotations, so only the people that want to try for them show up. There is another lottery pick at this round.

The third and final lottery is where everyone shows up to pick their remaining IN and OUT rotations. At this point, all the people that got their special rotations have either 1 or 2 of their OUT rotations already picked. Since only certain templates would accommodate the schedule for people in their special rotation, everyone else who did not go for special rotations have the other templates selected for them. So again, we have another lottery from 1-59. The people that got their special rotation get penalized by not being able to go during round 1 and possibly round 2. If their special rotation is for one OUT, they are skipped the first round to pick anything. If they pick a special rotation that count for two OUTs, then they are skipped twice. So there are pros and cons going for the special rotations.

For the IN rotations, there are 10 selections of different combinations of where you are in clinic (LV, BV, CL, etc.). The combinations are made in advance by the clinic administration office. So when you select your IN rotation, you actually select both of your IN rotations at the same time. If you pick “G1” selection for your first IN rotation, then you will automatically have to do the G1 rotation for your second rotation. This is planned pretty well since our clinic is open 7 days/week so you may get stuck with working a weekend for one IN rotation but you won’t be working on a weekend for the next IN rotation. Most people pick their IN rotation at the end since the more popular OUT rotations are picked very early.

During round 1, the selection goes from 1->59 and the people who got any special rotations are skipped. For round 2, the order is from 59 -> 1 with people who selected a special rotation that are gone for two OUTs are skipped, so everything works out close to fair. So back and forth through the numbers we go until everyone has selected all their OUT and IN rotations.

This whole process was pretty nerve wracking since someone who selects right before you can take the last space in the rotation you were hoping for (which happened to me!). Plus, to keep things moving along, we only were allowed 30 seconds for our first selection, 1 minute for our second selection, and 2 minutes for the rest of our selections. If you take too long, you will be skipped which we were reminded of by the timekeeper. =) Overall, it was a process that took close to 3 hours.

In all, I’m very happy with what I got although one rotation I was aiming for was taken up just before my selection. I also wanted to stay local to where I am for personal and financial reasons, but I’ll end up doing one out rotation in Sacramento (which is still within driving distance).

Does your school allow trades? Perhaps it’s not too late to find someone that may want your rotation and you can stay closer to home for at least one rotation. =)

Best wishes,

Rosanna

 

[cpw]

UHCO ranks the class by GPA and clinical performance. Then, they pick. Top quarter picks first, they release which sites are closed.. and then the rest of the class picks. But, I know the year after I graduated they were overhauling the system.. so it might not work like that anymore.

 

[r_salis]

At SUNY the final decision is based on GPA and clinical grades, but we have the opportunity to present our picks to the Externships Director as a class by having everyone sign up on a master schedule for their in-house/out-of-house choices. From what I've heard from other classes, this seems to work pretty well. Where there is competition for a popular slot, the GPA/clinic grades comes into play.

There are also a couple of programs that the school is required to fill, so if there isn't interest in them, the Externships Director may have to select people to do them. As at ICO, there's no preference given to married students. 🙁