Any good away rotations?

[avanb803]

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I'm a third year student from VCOM who is interested in gas and wondering if anyone has any advice on good places to do away rotations? I'm looking for a place that is DO friendly and generally a good experience for a med student. Any help is appreciated!

 

[billyverdin]

I'm a third year student from VCOM who is interested in gas and wondering if anyone has any advice on good places to do away rotations? I'm looking for a place that is DO friendly and generally a good experience for a med student. Any help is appreciated!

I have been on the interview trail and so far the most DO friendly place that I have come across is Baystate in Springfield, MA. Really a nice little program that is actually not that little, they will move to 9 CA-1's for the next years class. I only interviewed there so don't have first hand experience, but the residents were super nice, down to earth folks, having a great residency experience. The hospital is clean fairly modern. The location is not sublime but its not bad either. Springfield offers something and Hartford is only a stonethrow away and the picturesque small New England town of North Hampton is only 15-20 min north.
The program is solid, has a prime difficult airway rotation as a CA'1 and CA-2, for a total of 2 months in addition to anything else you get in 36 months, faculty committed to teaching and they don't push you to do research but its there if you want it....brand new sim man too.
Check it out, my $0.02

 

[dave262]

Best away rotation ever.... UT-Southwestern in Dallas. You have a great schedule and get to do lots of porcedures. Excellent didactics.

What is DO friendly?

 

[Trisomy13]

Did an away month at NYU and thought it was a good month for several reasons. you are permitted to break up your schedule by weeks, so you can see one week of general OR, one week of regional blocks, one week of OB, and one week of SICU, should you choose to do so. also available are cardiac, neuro, peds, etc. we had frequent (almost daily) mini-lectures around noon. many people opted to duck out after the noon lecture and enjoy the city, which was fine with many of the residents (does anyone ever really care when a student disappears, except maybe in the ICU?) Three different hospitals (Bellevue, Tisch, Hosp Joint Disease) = three different perspectives (county,private,surgical chop shop). Residents were friendly, faculty was eager to teach. And for those out of town, a month to check out the city and get a feel for how life is there (considering the numerous gas programs in and around nyc, this is not a bad idea). Not sure if they are "D.O. friendly" but I didn't really pay attention to this. I like to think of us as one big group of frightened and exhausted med students anyway. A number of other students on the rotation were DO so I guess they knew something.

 

[chicamedica]

i did one at Hopkins and loved it. There was also a visiting DO student there during the same month, and some of the residents are DOs, so the program seems pretty DO friendly. As a visiting student, u can design your own schedule as well. There is always a lot going on, so leaving at noon prob woulnd't be the best use of your away month at such a place, but u prob could if u wanted to. Med students take 1 night of call for every 2 weeks you're there. btw you will not sleep on call. . .but you will see some unique stuff and learn a ton, and since you're the only med student on call, whatever procedures need to be done, you're up for it, if u so desire. You do get weekends off, so there is lots of time to explore bmore or make a day trip to DC or philly.

 

[Sugar72]

Places where my interviewers made it a point to say something about the DO friendly climate were St. Louis University, Vanderbilt, and Medical College of Ga. I haven't done rotations at any of those places, but the PD's went out of their way to mention their DO friendliness.

 

[toonses]

By far the best away rotation I could have done being a DO was University of Indiana. PD there is very DO friendly...and frankly he doesn't care if you are DO or MD, but that you are a good student and show interest in the program. If you do a month there and he likes you, you are essentially in. Rotation overall was a great experience.

 

[Idiopathic]

Best away rotation ever.... UT-Southwestern in Dallas. You have a great schedule and get to do lots of porcedures. Excellent didactics.

What is DO friendly?

totally disagree. i liked my month there a lot, but there were 20 students on service and they all wanted to do anesthesia. No continuity with attendings and we actually had to work out who would take call when, d/t so many people. a great place to do an away, but not the best rotation, by far.

vanderbilt, on the other hand, was what UTSW should have been, as far as aways go. 4 students, max, an incredibly active student liason who calls you nightly to place you with a certain attending or on a certain case. (transplants, etc).

Hard to complain about either program as far as facilities, case load, professors and didactics...all were quality. But for away rotations, its hard to beat my month at vandy, in my opinion

 

[iron]

An earlier poster mentioned that you can leave at noon if you want and no one notices...

Don't believe it. I'm don't know the particulars of that program, but residents and attendings notice when med students go missing. Yes, I put it on a student's eval when I was a resident. And I've noted it as a med student rotation coordinator. We actually had a student state on his second day that he wanted to be done by noon every day. When we told him this wasn't realistic, he didn't bother to show up the third day. Good riddance, I say.

I've read hundreds (thousands?) of recommendation letters -- the students that stay late when they don't need to, take extra call, are around and interested -- that goes in the letter. The ones that leave at noon, don't get good letters.

 

[joshua_msu]

An earlier poster mentioned that you can leave at noon if you want and no one notices...

Don't believe it. I'm don't know the particulars of that program, but residents and attendings notice when med students go missing. Yes, I put it on a student's eval when I was a resident. And I've noted it as a med student rotation coordinator. We actually had a student state on his second day that he wanted to be done by noon every day. When we told him this wasn't realistic, he didn't bother to show up the third day. Good riddance, I say.

I've read hundreds (thousands?) of recommendation letters -- the students that stay late when they don't need to, take extra call, are around and interested -- that goes in the letter. The ones that leave at noon, don't get good letters.

What about staying longer than we are required? I mean if a resident tells us it is ok to go home, and we choose to stay because we are so enthralled with the rotation, does that make one look like they are kissing ass?

 

[Idiopathic]

What about staying longer than we are required? I mean if a resident tells us it is ok to go home, and we choose to stay because we are so enthralled with the rotation, does that make one look like they are kissing ass?

With the caveat being that anyone on an away rotation is, by default, kissing ass. I think people recognize and appreciate extra effort and initiative, and it can be left at that, for the most part.

 

[avanb803]

ANYWAYS, how bout those rotation sites?? Just curious if anyone has any experience from the west coast??

 

[Trisomy13]

An earlier poster mentioned that you can leave at noon if you want and no one notices...

Don't believe it. I'm don't know the particulars of that program, but residents and attendings notice when med students go missing. Yes, I put it on a student's eval when I was a resident. And I've noted it as a med student rotation coordinator. We actually had a student state on his second day that he wanted to be done by noon every day. When we told him this wasn't realistic, he didn't bother to show up the third day. Good riddance, I say.

I've read hundreds (thousands?) of recommendation letters -- the students that stay late when they don't need to, take extra call, are around and interested -- that goes in the letter. The ones that leave at noon, don't get good letters.

I think you were referring to my post. While I wholeheartedly agree with you in theory, I have to say that there are exceptions. Not to say I left at noon (1 pm actually, after noon lecture) everyday, or even most days, but I did on several occasions, and usually when the residents said "dude, get out of here, go enjoy the city". This was often after a solid morning of work. Quality over quantity. I have no delusions that residency is anything like this, or should be for that matter. And as far as evals go, I got a great one, written in front of me after a long conversation with the director of the rotation. I guess what I'm saying is that it's all relative to performance and attitude. If I encountered a student like yours who "wanted to be done by noon everyday" and then just didn't show up, I'd show him the door as well. If I thought someone was working hard but wanted a few days to enjoy his away rotation in the big apple, I certainly wouldn't knock him in his evaluation.

I have to say I really appreciated the attitude of the residents and attendings there who understood that I was not just deciding if their program is a good fit for me, but if their city is as well.