Away Rotation

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IMPCPJJANTMAN

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I will be applying to IM this fall. I’m considering doing an away rotation this September either at UC San Diego, Cedars Sinai, or UCLA harbor. Is there any difference between these programs? They seem pretty similar to me. I see that UCSD may be more academic but it seems like all three programs have a decent percentage of people who go on to fellowship. I'd most likely want to do a fellowship in cardio, pulm/crit, or endo. If anyone is at one of these places please let me know how you like it. Thanks!

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As long as you're an AMG, just don't bother. Seriously...not worth it.
Just curious what makes you say this. Do you have evidence or anecdotes? It seems to me that it's very hard to match in CA especially at an academic program therefore an away rotation may improve your chances slightly assuming you do well.
 
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Disagree with the other poster. you should at least try it, but he's right in saying that you have pretty much no chance unless you blow them away
 
Some Internal Medicine programs do have a track record of taking medical students that rotate with them. Finding out which programs those are is sometimes difficult. From my experience, most major university programs don't care if you rotate with them. They get way too many applicants and its just easier to file people in by scores or whatever the criteria they choose on their end of ERAs.

If you know someone with connections to the program, or a PD/APD/secretary indicate specifically that they prefer students that rotate with them then you may have a shot. If you don't have any of those answers, best assume its not going to help at all..
 
As others have said. risky business doing aways in IM where it isn’t necessary. Very hard to impress people when you have to spend a week learning the system and are being compared with home students who are familiar with things.

Also I will say anecdotally (including in my own experience in the trail), IM programs are big enough and want diversity so they really do not just exclusively interview people from the region. Ultimately usually people from Cali want to be in Cali so more of them apply to those programs and rank them highly, creating the skewed match lists you see, but in IM (at least from my experience and talking to my friends who recently matched) it is not nearly as hard to get to the UC system for residency without specific geographic ties as it likely is say for medical school.

Lastly I’ll just say there are other less-risky ways to express interest in a program that you think would otherwise interview you if only they knew you were serious about moving across the country to them (having recommenders reach out, emailing the PD to express genuine interest if you don’t hear back about an interview, etc).

I guess lastly lastly - if you’re from Cali and not worried about expressing interest to a new geographic region I apologize for the long read and say go back to point 1 - really hard to impress on an away, let you prior work speak for itself
 
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I reached out to the PD at the school I could rotate at. They said 10 of their interns did aways with them last year. Is it worth it? A different PD from a different school said it is not a requirement at their school. Trying to keep things anonymous.

(Not sure if it helps but my states are step 1 238, step II 248, 5 publications, good letters and research experience)
 
I reached out to the PD at the school I could rotate at. They said 10 of their interns did aways with them last year. Is it worth it? A different PD from a different school said it is not a requirement at their school. Trying to keep things anonymous.

(Not sure if it helps but my states are step 1 238, step II 248, 5 publications, good letters and research experience)

You were already given your answer.

Now. Do. What. You. Want.

You aren’t going to convince us we are wrong and you are right. Good luck.
 
I didn’t do any and got my number 1. I feel it’s more of a way to make yourself look bad. Just totally not needed for IM. Most people think they can “do better than the rest” but they are almost always wrong. Plus the program is still likely gonna rank the all star 270 with honors that interviewed at the end of their cycle for a backup than some “scrub”with a 230 that REELY wants to go here and paid buttloads of government money to rotate and air BNB. They get what they need from the interview

But if you are here to just do what you want to do anyway you owe us all ten bucks each for typing out answers
 
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