Anyone have tips for starting residency but haven’t been in that speciality for some time?

[ohmanwaddup]

Hey all,

im applying pediatrics and I’m a little nervous already for July because my last peds rotation of the year is in November, so it’ll be an 8 month gap before I start residency.

To complicate this further, my peds rotations only consist of the following: PICU, inpatient pulm, and ED. No general floor stuff and it makes me a little nervous.

my schedule can’t be changed at this point, my school is really strict. Anyone got any advice or calming words?

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[GoSpursGo]

You will be fine. A bunch of students wind up taking fake rotations for the last 6 months once they wrap up graduation requirements, so a lot of incoming interns are going to be rusty regardless.

The expectations for an intern on day 1 are very very low. Particularly in peds, your senior and attending are going to hover over you constantly and won't let you make a mistake that actually harms any patients. While invariably a few interns will be a little more prepared than others because of the rotations they had, that "head start" is going to wash out by midway through the year. As long as you are trying hard, read about your patients, and do your best to at least come up with a coherent plan on your own rather than just get the plan spoonfed by your senior/attending, you will improve.

 

[Neopolymath]

You are going to be fine. Ironically, tons of people go into specialties requiring them to do an intern year in a specialty they specifically avoided applying to and obviously didn't spend the second half of their fourth year rotating in and as a result torturing themselves, either.

If an ophthalmologist or whatever can do fine during their ward months hating life then think about how well you will perform in a specialty you actually liked enough to apply to in the first place. It sounds cliche on the surface but it's really nothing to worry about. Thousands of people have done the exact same thing before you. The system isn't perfect but it's been proven to work. You will be fine. Enjoy the rest of your fourth year and stop worrying about this.

 

[mrbreakfast]

As others said, you'll be fine. People in specialties with prelim years have been doing this every year. I walked into my prelim medicine year having done just six weeks of inpatient IM, 18 months prior at that. Was it a rough start? Sure, but you get up to speed in a few weeks at most.

 

[Dral]

No worries. The time between my last specialty rotation and the start of residency was a year and ten months, and here I am.