"Away rotations" during residency?

[SarahL]

Hi everyone, I met a resident doing a rotation in San Francisco who was doing the rest of her residency at the University of Virginia. Does this occur often? She said that UVA allows residents to go elsewhere if they can't offer something themselves, like a specialty clinic they don't have.

What if you just want to do it because you think another location is cool and you think you might want to obtain employment in that area or do a fellowship there? Does this happen? Thanks for any information you have.

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[mpp]

I know that certain residencies at the Mayo Clinic offer what they call "extramural rotations". These seem to be in "affiliated" locations. For example, the anesthesia residency offers extermural rotations at Barrow Neurologic Institute, Bowman Gray School of Medicine (Wake Forest), Childrens National Medical Center in D.C., and the Nemours Childrens Hospital in Florida. You can also do away rotations at the Jacksonville, Scottsdale, or Rochester Mayo clinics and hospitals.

It seems like a reasonable thing and definitely something worthwhile to determine when choosing residencies.

 

[Winged Scapula]

Several programs I interviewed at, including this one, offered that - this is especially true of small community programs that might not have enough Trauma, etc. to satisfy RRC requirements for caselogs or electives. From here I can also go away for my lab years while that was NOT an option at other places.

Highly program dependent - check with the PDs and current residents as to practice at specific programs.

 

[SarahL]

Thanks! This is very interesting.

 

[Sheerstress]

I would agree that it varies from program to program. The most common reason for away rotations is if your home institution cannot provide a good experience.

A program, however, does not get reimbursed by the governement for the months you spend away from the program, so that can be a disincentive to allow you to do so (as a preliminary surgery resident, I wanted to do a trauma month at a major urban center, but couldn't for that reason).

Sheerstress

 

[Sevo]

•••quote:•••Originally posted by SarahL:
•
What if you just want to do it because you think another location is cool and you think you might want to obtain employment in that area or do a fellowship there? Does this happen? Thanks for any information you have.•••••A lot of programs do not allow rotations at outside, non-affiliated hospitals for a number of reasons. Although there are exceptions, it is usually done when the home program cannot provide the minimum number of particular case types for its residents necessary for them to be certified for their boards.

By far the number one reason, as the poster above stated is financial. Your home hospital is not reimbursed for the outside rotation and in some cases, may have to foot your paycheck and associated benefits during that time. Other issues include training license limitations and the bureacratic headaches involved in securing temporary privileges for residents.