Away rotations for class of 2022

[MedScat]

My school just emailed:

The Coalition for Physician Accountability (COPA) has released updated recommendations for away rotations for the 2021-22 academic year and residency application cycle.

They recommend that Away rotations should resume no earlier than August 1, 2021, with the following guidance:

• After April 15, learners may begin applying for and scheduling in-person away rotations with a start date of August 1, 2021, or later.
• Given the compressed timeline paired with an inadequate quantity of electives available for completion, medical schools are encouraged to limit approved away rotations in any specialty to one per learner, except in cases where additional rotations are needed to complete graduation or accreditation requirements. Residency programs are encouraged to take into consideration if a learner exceeded the one away rotation limit during the residency selection process
• Programs may continue to offer virtual electives to provide opportunities for learners to explore the specialty and program.

How do we feel about this? I feel this is a good thing especially for those of us applying to specialties that away rotations are important but still only allows one per person to keep the playing field level....

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[frenchyn]

My school just emailed:

The Coalition for Physician Accountability (COPA) has released updated recommendations for away rotations for the 2021-22 academic year and residency application cycle.

They recommend that Away rotations should resume no earlier than August 1, 2021, with the following guidance:

• After April 15, learners may begin applying for and scheduling in-person away rotations with a start date of August 1, 2021, or later.
• Given the compressed timeline paired with an inadequate quantity of electives available for completion, medical schools are encouraged to limit approved away rotations in any specialty to one per learner, except in cases where additional rotations are needed to complete graduation or accreditation requirements. Residency programs are encouraged to take into consideration if a learner exceeded the one away rotation limit during the residency selection process
• Programs may continue to offer virtual electives to provide opportunities for learners to explore the specialty and program.

How do we feel about this? I feel this is a good thing especially for those of us applying to specialties that away rotations are important but still only allows one per person to keep the playing field level....

Who is the COPA lol? Will programs/specialties follow their recs?

 

[MedScat]

Who is the COPA lol? Will programs/specialties follow their recs?

I'm likely applying EM so I follow EM stuff usually and it looks like last year EMRA did follow their guidelines last year (whoever they are)

Consensus Statement on the 2020-2021 Residency Application Process

Matching in emergency medicine has been a life-long dream. Now, carefully laid out plans may seem temporarily thwarted. EMRA and our specialty have your back in every way as you navigate to join the best specialty in the world.

www.emra.org

 

[frenchyn]

I'm likely applying EM so I follow EM stuff usually and it looks like last year EMRA did follow their guidelines last year (whoever they are)

Consensus Statement on the 2020-2021 Residency Application Process

Matching in emergency medicine has been a life-long dream. Now, carefully laid out plans may seem temporarily thwarted. EMRA and our specialty have your back in every way as you navigate to join the best specialty in the world.

www.emra.org

So Aka the answer is til up to the air whether subI will resume 🤦‍♀️

 

[MedScat]

So Aka the answer is til up to the air whether subI will resume 🤦‍♀️

Not sure what you mean since I'm just talking about away rotations....we'll likely be able to do 1. My school has a Sub-I requirement but we do it in-house. Do you mean an away sub-I? If you do...I think thats what this is saying...we'll be allowed to do one.

 

[frenchyn]

Not sure what you mean since I'm just talking about away rotations....we'll likely be able to do 1. My school has a Sub-I requirement but we do it in-house. Do you mean an away sub-I? If you do...I think thats what this is saying...we'll be allowed to do one.

Oops I missed read your post. Tbh idk who they are and how much weight they have on this.

 

[Oligodinero]

I'm likely applying EM so I follow EM stuff usually and it looks like last year EMRA did follow their guidelines last year (whoever they are)

Consensus Statement on the 2020-2021 Residency Application Process

Matching in emergency medicine has been a life-long dream. Now, carefully laid out plans may seem temporarily thwarted. EMRA and our specialty have your back in every way as you navigate to join the best specialty in the world.

www.emra.org

Yeah CORD released those guidelines for last fall.....it turns out plenty of people completely disregarded them. I've only heard of one person being called out about it during their interviews, which kinda pisses me off because I dropped 2 auditions as soon as CORD released that guideline. I think unless it becomes an enforceable guideline, similar things will happen this fall.....folks will disregard and do as many sub-Is as they can get.

 

[fldoctorgirl]

My school requires 3 sub-Is so this should be interesting.

Also, this blows for those of us who were counting on aways to make up for sh***y M3 rotations.

 

[ohmanwaddup]

This seems absurdly premature. More and more vaccine is being handed out everyday. Practically everyone at my school has gotten the vaccine and will be getting their 2nd dose by the end of February.

I've talked to several hospitals who say they are planning on doing aways back to normal, and one has already opened applications and I've almost completed it.

What possible logic do these people have to keep screwing with our education, especially if we have the vaccine. We can do thrid year just dandy without any vaccine and the pandemic getting worse and worse with each week, but now suddenly can't do aways? In buildings who strictly enforce temperatures and masks?

 

[ohmanwaddup]

Oops I missed read your post. Tbh idk who they are and how much weight they have on this.

Its a coalition of a bunch of groups.

Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine American Medical Association Assembly of Osteopathic Graduate Medical Educators Association of American Medical Colleges Council of Medical Specialty Societies/Organization of Program Director Associations Education Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates National Resident Matching Program

These are the groups that make up the coalition.

 

[deleted954943]

This seems absurdly premature. More and more vaccine is being handed out everyday. Practically everyone at my school has gotten the vaccine and will be getting their 2nd dose by the end of February.

I've talked to several hospitals who say they are planning on doing aways back to normal, and one has already opened applications and I've almost completed it.

What possible logic do these people have to keep screwing with our education, especially if we have the vaccine. We can do thrid year just dandy without any vaccine and the pandemic getting worse and worse with each week, but now suddenly can't do aways? In buildings who strictly enforce temperatures and masks?

I'm with you man. This is one of the many, many nonsensical COVID regulations that do more harm than good. I do not know what their rationale is for these recs. Is it to help "stop the spread"? If it is, then these recs are absurd. As if med students doing their away rotations are the thing that causing corona to rage across the country. Funny how the NBOME is still fine with every osteopathic student in the country traveling to take Level 2 PE because they collect their six hundred plus dollar exam fee. Ultimately, the potential harm they do to people's careers vs the "good" of MAYBE decreasing covid numbers is totally skewed more in the direction of harm. Who cares about "equal playing field"? Go out there and get it. If people want to sit in their basements in and Zoom for the rest of med school, then let them. I want to go out there and make things happen.

 

[Oligodinero]

I'm with you man. This is one of the many, many nonsensical COVID regulations that do more harm than good. I do not know what their rationale is for these recs. Is it to help "stop the spread"? If it is, then these recs are absurd. As if med students doing their away rotations are the thing that causing corona to rage across the country. Funny how the NBOME is still fine with every osteopathic student in the country traveling to take Level 2 PE because they collect their six hundred plus dollar exam fee. Ultimately, the potential harm they do to people's careers vs the "good" of MAYBE decreasing covid numbers is totally skewed more in the direction of harm. Who cares about "equal playing field"? Go out there and get it. If people want to sit in their basements in and Zoom for the rest of med school, then let them. I want to go out there and make things happen.

I thought I paid closer to $1200 for PE

 

[fldoctorgirl]

Level 2 PE because they collect their six hundred plus dollar exam fee.

Try $1300

 

[Redpancreas]

Out of curiosity, how did the EM match work with no away rotations that gave SLOEs? I know my friend who matched at a program he really liked he wouldn't have gotten to train at without an away.

 

[calivianya]

Edit: sorry guys, just realized this was in the MD forum and not the general rotations forum. Was DO-specific, please disregard.

 

[FutureDoctor5000]

Yeah CORD released those guidelines for last fall.....it turns out plenty of people completely disregarded them. I've only heard of one person being called out about it during their interviews, which kinda pisses me off because I dropped 2 auditions as soon as CORD released that guideline. I think unless it becomes an enforceable guideline, similar things will happen this fall.....folks will disregard and do as many sub-Is as they can get.

Can you expand on this? Students were able to do as many aways as they wanted or only as many were allowed by their schools? Since last year many schools didn’t let students go on aways at all... how did people still get to go on aways then?

 

[SurgDoc95]

My school requires 3 sub-Is so this should be interesting.

Also, this blows for those of us who were counting on aways to make up for sh***y M3 rotations.

I wouldn’t worry about it tbh. I did several aways/auditions and wasn’t asked about it and hasn’t seemed to effect my application/interview cycle. Just commit to being safe and cautious on your auditions and put yourself in the best position to succeed

 

[ohmanwaddup]

I wouldn’t worry about it tbh. I did several aways/auditions and wasn’t asked about it and hasn’t seemed to effect my application/interview cycle. Just commit to being safe and cautious on your auditions and put yourself in the best position to succeed

I've heard this a lot too. EM especially people who went on multiple aways and got multiple SLOEs did much better than those who didn't. This is all anecdotal of course.

I think I'll plan to have an answer to the question of "why did you do more aways blah blah" on interviews just in case

 

[deleted954943]

I've heard this a lot too. EM especially people who went on multiple aways and got multiple SLOEs did much better than those who didn't. This is all anecdotal of course.

I think I'll plan to have an answer to the question of "why did you do more aways blah blah" on interviews just in case

How can they tell how many aways a student has done? How were you thinking of answering that question if they ask?

 

[Oligodinero]

How can they tell how many aways a student has done? How were you thinking of answering that question if they ask?

Well...if your transcripts are sent they can see what/when/where you did what rotations.

 

[ohmanwaddup]

How can they tell how many aways a student has done? How were you thinking of answering that question if they ask?

It will be on the transcripts, plus the LORs. I will probably say some version of " I am fully vaccinated against COVID, I live in the same area as all these hospitals so I am not actually traveling, my school approved all rotations and uses a distributive model of clinical education, I felt that this was in the best interest of my future patients etc.

 

[Oligodinero]

Can you expand on this? Students were able to do as many aways as they wanted or only as many were allowed by their schools? Since last year many schools didn’t let students go on aways at all... how did people still get to go on aways then?

Prior to COVID it was fairly common for EM applicants to do 3-5 auditions. After COVID struck a lot of sites started cancelling away rotations which was really going to impact DO students who didn't have home EM programs they could rotate at. CORD released a strongly-worded recommendation that EM applicants should only do one audition....preferably at home but away was acceptable if your school didn't have a home EM residency program. Lots of PDs stated they'd hold applicants to the CORD recommendation, but there was no real way to enforce compliance other than the threat that some PDs may hold it against an applicant for not being a team player and taking up a bunch of audition spots that may leave orphan applicants without an opportunity to get a SLOE before ERAS opened.
It turned out that if a medical school wasn't restricting their students from doing aways then some of those students didn't cancel their multiple auditions and did them anyway.
Now I don't honestly know if applicants who did more than one audition got more IIs or will have better match rates than those who limited themselves to one audition. Probably that data will be published over the next several months.

 

[MedScat]

I wouldn’t worry about it tbh. I did several aways/auditions and wasn’t asked about it and hasn’t seemed to effect my application/interview cycle. Just commit to being safe and cautious on your auditions and put yourself in the best position to succeed

You did away rotations even thought it was "frowned upon?" How did you even manage this, what programs were still allowing away rotations? Did you apply EM?

 

[SurgDoc95]

You did away rotations even thought it was "frowned upon?" How did you even manage this, what programs were still allowing away rotations? Did you apply EM?

I did not apply EM, my school requires us to do several Sub Is to graduate, and the field I applied to didn’t come out with an aggressive no away/1 away stance.

 

[ohmanwaddup]

You did away rotations even thought it was "frowned upon?" How did you even manage this, what programs were still allowing away rotations? Did you apply EM?

Plenty of hospitals allowed aways. Some students in my school have been doing all aways since october

 

[Cranjis McBasketball]

You did away rotations even thought it was "frowned upon?" How did you even manage this, what programs were still allowing away rotations? Did you apply EM?

Yeah I was gonna say, EM seemed like the specialty that cared most about limiting aways