Away Rotations and LOR

I had this same dilemma last year. I did both an away CT rotaion and pain rotation. Halfway through both I asked and was able to rotate through general anesthesia for the final week. Its a good idea to work with as many attendings as possible and the program directors at these places happened to be in general. If i had to do it again I would stick to general anesthesia for the exposure and to get down the basics on healthier patients.(versus CT were i basically placed a line and stayed out the way)

 

I would never discourage an application, but be aware that some places have Step 1 cutoff scores. I know UAB and Emory are two such places. Exact numbers are just rumor, but I heard Emory, at least, was around 225 cutoff for interview this past year. With that being said, a few extra $$ to send off another application is no big deal at this point, so it can't hurt.

Also, I would tend to recommend doing general as this gives you a variety of cases and people with whom to work. If you're interested in CT, most places will tailor your schedule to an interest area.

As far as pain is concerned, it may depend on the program. I did an away where there was only 1 pain attending, so that was the only person I had contact with the entire rotation. I would not recommend rotating at that specific program, but others may be beneficial.

 

And to further add to the chaos, I can speak from experience and tell you that even places rumored to have "cut-off" numbers such as UAB will make exceptions, because I interviewed there and had a Step 1 score that would surely not make any cut-off. I made up for that blemish in other areas (step 2, publications, advanced degree, etc), but my case stands to prove that they do not just look at one score and throw away the application. I found this to be true at several programs that are often touted on this board as being those with strict cut-offs.