away rotations during residency

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nocebo

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Hi, I'm an MSIII, just wondering about traveling rotations during residency.

Basically my question is: Is it common to require residents to rotate at an affiliated (sp) hospital so far away from your program's main location that you're required to temporarily move there? I understand it's typical to do rotations at other hospitals in the same metro area, which are still within reasonable driving distance from home. I'm curious because my medical school has a number of MSIII core clerkship sites >50 miles away from our school/primary hospital complex. Admittedly I'm kinda looking for reassurance that I won't be forced to spend weeks or months at a time away from home (and my wife, since I'll be married by then) which I and a large number of my classmates are stuck doing right now. Thanks.
 
Make that a priority in your rank list. Unfortunately it is relatively common, since not every program can offer the case counts / procedures in every single category needed for accreditation right in the home base. But it is easily avoided.

And fyi, it's not just small community programs-- depending on the service, we send our residents out to Newark or to Shock Trauma for months at a time to do their trauma rotations, and we're one of the biggest hospitals in America, in the largest city in America.
 
OK, thanks for explaining. From the two people who responded so far though, it sounds like they don't often send you to hospitals that are so far from home that you spend the night/week/month/...away from your family. For example it may be a pain in the you-know-what to have to commute out to Newark from New York every day but it's not such a long ride that you can't go back home on non-call nights. (Currently I'm about a 2-hour drive from home, and our school has another clerkship site that's almost a 5-hour drive. Maybe not so unusual in less densely populated areas of the country, but pretty odd for the Northeast which seems to have a tertiary care center on every corner.)
 
Newark back to the UE Side isn't *so* bad, but Baltimore would be (ie, they also rotate at Shock Trauma). We had a Burn Rotation about 2 hours away which I got out of byr substituting something else I was interested in close by.

So, it depends on the program whether you are sent outside the metro area for any rotations and if so, how far.
 
OK, thanks for explaining. From the two people who responded so far though, it sounds like they don't often send you to hospitals that are so far from home that you spend the night/week/month/...away from your family. For example it may be a pain in the you-know-what to have to commute out to Newark from New York every day but it's not such a long ride that you can't go back home on non-call nights. (Currently I'm about a 2-hour drive from home, and our school has another clerkship site that's almost a 5-hour drive. Maybe not so unusual in less densely populated areas of the country, but pretty odd for the Northeast which seems to have a tertiary care center on every corner.)

It is very program dependent, not just the hospital you go to but the specialty. It's not uncommon to have to go to a site that is 30-60 min drive from the main hospital(s) as mentioned. It's less common that you'll have to go to a site where you have to stay for the length of the rotation but there are certainly some of them out there. The only one I interviewed at for IM was U Wash where ~1/3 of the R2s spend the year in Boise at the VA. Urban FM programs may also have you spend some time (3-12 mos over the course of the residency) at 1 or more rural locations.

Short answer is that if you want that experience, you can find it but it's also easy to avoid if you don't.
 
For all interested in Columbia's residencies: the trauma month is 24 on/24 off and the residents live in Newark. No one commutes back and forth.

Like I said, when you're interviewing make sure to ask about this, and rank accordingly.
 
There are lots of medicine programs where you pretty much don't move at all from the home hospital during the entire residency. Mine had a big university hospital, and a VA across the street. We did 1 intern month at a hospital 10-15 minutes away in our city, but not even all the interns spent a month there.

What your med school is doing sounds kind of unusual...though not grossly unusual. I had to do my family practice month in another town when I was a med student, and a month at the VA, but the VA was in the same city as our main teaching hospital.

I'd just be careful to ask those questions when you interview for residency.
By the way, some residencies LOVE married guys with families, because they think you guys are stable and more happy, and that you won't be out partying and will be taken care of by your wife, so I think you're likely to do well in the Match.
 
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