Away Electives

[Deucedano]

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Some people say you should do away electives at the place you want to go so you can get to know the faculty. Others say its a bad idea because you dont want to make a mistake/offend someone and have it hurt your chances of getting a spot at that program. What is the consensus on doing away electives? I am from and go to a school on the east coast, but I really want to do residency in the mountains or west coast.

 

[KeratinPearls]

Some people say you should do away electives at the place you want to go so you can get to know the faculty. Others say its a bad idea because you dont want to make a mistake/offend someone and have it hurt your chances of getting a spot at that program. What is the consensus on doing away electives? I am from and go to a school on the east coast, but I really want to do residency in the mountains or west coast.

I think it's a good idea. I think it'll be good for you to know if it's the place for you. Can you see yourself there for four years (believe me this is the single most important factor in selecting a residency...you will be seeing the same ppl over and over for four years)? You can't make a mistake really...you are there to learn and you don't really have any responsibilities other than learning. I think if you go with the intention of learning as much as possible and be proactive about it, it will impress people. You may not even get a chance to sit at signout with the faculty that make the decisions (some places I am sure you are able to), but chief residents will be asked about how you did and whether they liked you, etc.

Like I've said before, those with friendly personalities that worked hard and were proactive at learning were the ones that stuck out. Those that were weird, kept to themselves and didn't talk to anyone were the ones that made a negative impression.

Just be yourself, go there and be nice and learn as much as possible. If you don't do aways then I think you'd regret it.

 

[jenesaispas0005]

This is always the problem with any specialty and 4th year electives. Honestly I think the most important thing for these rotations is for YOU to decide whether a program is worth applying to or if it's a place you'd be happy matching at.

I will have done 5 pathology electives by the time I graduate, and of the 4 I have done, 3 of them have been with residency programs. It was very fortunate that I did that because one of the places I rotated at was a place that was originally very high on my list, but after a couple days I decided to not even apply for the program because of what I experienced there. The other two I kind of had at the middle/bottom of my list and they moved up very high because I had such great experiences there.

It's been my experience that programs really don't expect much out of you knowledgewise because, let's face it, you can't learn pathology unless you do it. And you can't do it until you do elective rotations. Unless you really screw up big time (ie cutting off someone's finger while grossing, breaking a scope/slide) you're really not going to make yourself look bad. Except, of course, if someone asks you to look something up and you don't. But that's true of anything.

As long as you have seen pictures and slides before, brush up on your histology and whatnot, you'll be fine. And while you're on the rotation you can immerse yourself in the books and materials available there so you can look like a rockstar during the rotation.

 

[yaah]

Some people say you should do away electives at the place you want to go so you can get to know the faculty. Others say its a bad idea because you dont want to make a mistake/offend someone and have it hurt your chances of getting a spot at that program. What is the consensus on doing away electives? I am from and go to a school on the east coast, but I really want to do residency in the mountains or west coast.

If you're going to constantly make mistakes and offend people then whether you do an away rotation should not be your concern. There are more benefits than drawbacks to doing away rotations - the drawbacks are mainly financial in my opinion.

 

[Deucedano]

If you're going to constantly make mistakes and offend people then whether you do an away rotation should not be your concern. There are more benefits than drawbacks to doing away rotations - the drawbacks are mainly financial in my opinion.

I completely agree, especially the financial drawbacks. Since it is so expensive, how many aways do people typically do? On a similar subject, what non-pathology electives should I schedule for 4th year. I know I should do electives that interest me, but are there any clinical electives that can help me in pathology?

 

[pathstudent]

I completely agree, especially the financial drawbacks. Since it is so expensive, how many aways do people typically do? On a similar subject, what non-pathology electives should I schedule for 4th year. I know I should do electives that interest me, but are there any clinical electives that can help me in pathology?

It is definitely a good idea to do them to get an idea for the style of the program and to get letters of rec. I don't think you can make mistakes that would offend people. Just be nice.

However it can be very expensive if you have to travel far and sublet a place.

Also if you can't afford to do one don't worry about it. Most matchers do not do an elective at the place they matched at.

 

[yaah]

I completely agree, especially the financial drawbacks. Since it is so expensive, how many aways do people typically do? On a similar subject, what non-pathology electives should I schedule for 4th year. I know I should do electives that interest me, but are there any clinical electives that can help me in pathology?

I suspect most people don't do any, and if they do it is at a program close to their own, or one where they have a friend/relative they can stay with. I did one because I was not from the midwest or doing med school in the midwest but wanted to do residency in the midwest. I have no idea if it helped or not. It didn't hurt. More than one would not have helped more.

For your other electives just do things you are interested in, it will be your last chance. I did rotations in ID, heme/onc, derm, cardiology. Learned a lot that still helps me today. Would have liked to have done radiology but the way my med school worked it wouldn't have counted.

 

[Autopsy Sweet]

Some people say you should do away electives at the place you want to go so you can get to know the faculty. Others say its a bad idea because you dont want to make a mistake/offend someone and have it hurt your chances of getting a spot at that program. What is the consensus on doing away electives? I am from and go to a school on the east coast, but I really want to do residency in the mountains or west coast.

Clearly there are differing opinions on this, and I disagree with most of the previous posters. I didn't do it as a student and got my first choice. From the perspective of a resident I can simply say that, of the 6 or so rotators we have had at my residency in the last few years, we've only taken one or two. The others ranked us no. 1 (or so they told us), but the month was enough for most of the residents to say "no thanks" when asked if we wanted that person. I know of one case where the residents were adamant about not having a certain applicant because she was really weird during the month. She went somewhere else but we've come to discover that she was jut trying too hard and is actually a pretty cool person. That one month really did her in, though. I just haven't seen it pay off enough to take the risk of losing your top choice because people read you wrong.

Regarding 4th year rotations, I would do as little path as possible (2 months max) and focus on things you'll never get to do again like dermatology, maybe rheum, radiology, etc.

 

[pathstudent]

Clearly there are differing opinions on this, and I disagree with most of the previous posters. I didn't do it as a student and got my first choice. From the perspective of a resident I can simply say that, of the 6 or so rotators we have had at my residency in the last few years, we've only taken one or two. The others ranked us no. 1 (or so they told us), but the month was enough for most of the residents to say "no thanks" when asked if we wanted that person. I know of one case where the residents were adamant about not having a certain applicant because she was really weird during the month. She went somewhere else but we've come to discover that she was jut trying too hard and is actually a pretty cool person. That one month really did her in, though. I just haven't seen it pay off enough to take the risk of losing your top choice because people read you wrong.

Regarding 4th year rotations, I would do as little path as possible (2 months max) and focus on things you'll never get to do again like dermatology, maybe rheum, radiology, etc.

Like I said. It is not at all necessary to do away rotations in path but there are a lot of good reasons to do it if you can afford it and you want to do them. The best reasons are to get to see different environments and cultures of departments along with meeting great people. For instance some departments the residents where ties every day and others they were scrubs or polo shirts and jeans or skirts with open toe shoes if female. At Some places having to go to conferences is a huge deal, in other places almost everone blows them off. Some places are subspecialized with a 2 day turn around from the time of grossing. Others are general with a 1 day turn around. It is good if you can see the different styles and what appeals to you personally.

If you happen to go to a med school with no residency program, then you should really do away rotations. If your program has one, then only do them if you can afford it and you want to do them.

Yes and absolutely due electives in things that you will never see again but might be related to path. I did 4 surgical sub Is in ortho-onc, ENT-onc, Gyn-onc and neurosurgery and 2 medicine sub Is in hepatology and lung transpant where I knew pathologist-surgeon/clinician interaction was huge.

 

[KCShaw]

It's true that most people don't know how to act in a pathology department. The attitudes are different than on the wards, and as a student you end up hanging around 1 or 2 residents all day, sometimes for days in a row if not the entire month, as opposed to being able to go see patients for long chunks of time and reporting in every now and then, etc. But I also disagree with people who advise you not to do an away pathology rotation because you dont want to make a mistake/offend someone and have it hurt your chances. Either they're trying to tell you you're weird or they've been burned too many times by bad rotators to their own program.

That said, I agree you don't need to go on an away rotation -- I just disagree with avoiding them, particularly for the quoted reason, unless you know you're weird. You do, I think, "need" to do a pathology rotation somewhere, preferably starting with your own institution. It's really the only way to know it's a field you're even interested in, because sadly medical school will otherwise not provide you enough information to make an educated determination.

As for clinical electives -- yes. Any and/or all can help you in some way in pathology, and I totally agree that you should take any that interest you no matter how removed from pathology you may think them.