Away Rotation At...

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Doctor G

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Hello everyone,

I am very interested in going to one program, and may rank it in the top 2 of my list. I have interview set up already at this place in December, but my two clerkships yet to set up are in Jan-Feb and Feb-March.

My question: Will setting up a rotation at this hospital be a plus for me? Even though the rotation time will occur after the interview. (But I will tell them I'm doing a rotation there, to show my commitment to the program).

And if so... Should I do my Sub-I surgery there? (show commitment to the hospital, yet won't risk exposing myself to unnecessary scrutiny). Or do family/internal medicine/specialty rotations there? (in the field I'm going for).

Thank you in advance!

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Hello everyone,

I am very interested in going to one program, and may rank it in the top 2 of my list. I have interview set up already at this place in December, but my two clerkships yet to set up are in Jan-Feb and Feb-March.

My question: Will setting up a rotation at this hospital be a plus for me? Even though the rotation time will occur after the interview. (But I will tell them I'm doing a rotation there, to show my commitment to the program).

And if so... Should I do my Sub-I surgery there? (show commitment to the hospital, yet won't risk exposing myself to unnecessary scrutiny). Or do family/internal medicine/specialty rotations there? (in the field I'm going for).

Thank you in advance!

Do a medicine sub-specialty. It will help show interest, help you get to know the program better, and avoids the scrutiny that a Sub-I would bring. A surgery sub-specialty doesn't really make sense, it may help show interest but not really to the right people and it would not give you a good feel for the program.
 
A surgery sub-specialty doesn't really make sense, it may help show interest but not really to the right people and it would not give you a good feel for the program.

We need to do a sub-internship in medicine and one in surgery (can be anesthesia, ortho, diag/interventional radiology). I already have a sub-I medicine set up at another hospital. So I have one sub-I surgery and one elective to do.

I guess I'll do a medicine sub-specialty rotation.

Thanks for your time, Medikit.
 
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Agree with Medikit, with one provision, which is that away rotations at your hospital-of-interest can either help or hurt you. If you come from a medical school that does not have a lot of representation in the hospital-of-interest, the conventional wisdom is that you should strongly consider doing an away rotation at that hospital, with the hope that you'll do well and increase your chances of matching there; however, if you do badly, then word will get around and your application may be jeopardized. With that provision, what Medikit says is wholly true - if you're applying to IM residency, it's best to stick with IM rotations (subI or subspecialty), as a surgical rotation will have no bearing.
 
With that provision, what Medikit says is wholly true - if you're applying to IM residency, it's best to stick with IM rotations (subI or subspecialty), as a surgical rotation will have no bearing.

Agreed. In fact, I can only see a surgical rotation having a bad outcome for you.

Since you want to do IM, you're probably going to be tempted to do the absolute minimum necessary to squeak through your surgery sub-I. (I know that I was.) If you do that at your home institution, most people will know you're not surgery bound and will mostly let it ride, as long as you don't slack too much and leave your team hanging.

An away rotation OTOH will expect you to be gunning for a good evaluation and anything less than kicking massive ***** will be looked upon as a sub-par performance. This is probably not what you're looking to do for your surgery rotation (although I could be wrong). The way I see it, the best you can hope for on this away rotation is a good eval if you really rock it. If you just go for the bare minimum to pass, you're more likely to upset somebody on the team (Chief resident, attending, clerkship director, etc) and more likely to get something negative passed on to the IM program at the hospital.

So do an IM subspecialty away rotation, preferably something you like so you'll be more inclined to read and impress the team/attending.
 
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