Any general advice on setting up 3rd year?

[JShephard]

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I'm leaning towards EM and was curls of there are any tips for an ideal 3rd year schedule.

Core rotations: IM, Surg, Peds, OB, FM

Any good orders?

Comments on IM first or starting off with something easier to get your feet wet?

 

[Chiron3x]

As a Med student finishing up 3rd year, I'll offer my input:

I had the same core rotations as you, and at least at my sites, there wasn't much EM work involved in any of those rotations. In fact, the only time I was ever in the ER was on IM when we were accepting an admission (don't know about surgery, starting that soon). My best advice would be to get the other specialties that you are also considering done early so that you get an idea if that's what you want to do or not. Hope this helps!

 

[DrYoda]

If there's something you absolutely know you don't want to do I recommend doing that first. Saves your month of being absolutely clueless from being in something you end up wanting to match into. Otherwise I don't think it really matters. Maybe avoid peds during flu/peak URI season?

 

[Akail]

2nd the sentiment that it doesn't really matter. It's a good thought but realistically, they're "core" rotations for a reason and you'll find yourself drawing upon the basic things you learned on each rotation when you start doing auditions. If anything, maybe on each rotation you could keep a particular eye on the high yield topics/procedures for EM. For example, I learned a lot about the workup for chest pain, etc on IM and did my first intubation on Surgery (asked the anesthesiologist).

 

[bad virus]

I'm leaning towards EM and was curls of there are any tips for an ideal 3rd year schedule.

Core rotations: IM, Surg, Peds, OB, FM

Any good orders?

Comments on IM first or starting off with something easier to get your feet wet?

J, quick question first, are you on track for AOA or not in terms of your basic science grades (aka top 15-25% of class depending on school)?

I started IM first and it was honestly brutal. I barely got away with honors, but here is the good part. For the rest of the entire year, the other rotations were like a walk in the park. You know so much by the end of that rotation that you will be outshining your interns at times (not always a good thing). The perks of starting a rotation also is that they know you are literally ******ed when it comes to hospital stuff so they give you so much slack. You will get an intern or two that are douches but your upper levels know you have no idea what's going on so they will try to help you out so much.

Shoot me a PM and I will give you my phone number so we can chat a little more about specifics if you want.

Good luck.

 

[turkeyjerky]

Order of rotations doesn't matter squat. Just don't do EM before you've done all your cores (minus FM) cause you will suck and it will be held against you come application time.

 

[jbar]

The best advice I got was whatever you think you want to do, do it in the middle. You don't want to do it first because you won't make a good impression. You don't want to do it last because you have to sort out your sub-Is by the spring, and it is a bit of a mess if you do your "dream" rotation in May, realize you don't want to go into that field, and have to scramble to rearrange your 4th year schedule. Much better to find out you hate EM/surgery/whatever in January than in June.

Other than that it doesn't really matter. But I would try to save at least one "easier" rotation for latter in the year when you need a break. It's a bit of a waste to do something like psych the first rotation when you would kill for a 9-5 schedule for a month come Feb.