Best externships?

[endoandre]

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Which school offers the best externships in your opinion, Kent or NYCPM?

 

[dtrack22]

whoever gives you more

 

[pacpod]

whoever gives you more

Agree with the caveat of the most clerkships before interviews.

 

[endoandre]

Agree with the caveat of the most clerkships before interviews.

Understood, thanks! So I've read that Kent gives you 6 externships and NYCPM only 5. I'm interested in getting into a good surgery residency. Based on your advice or experience, the more externships a school provides the better you are?.

 

[ToeTickler323]

I would advise quality over quantity. Like anklebreaker said YOU have to put in the work, YOU have to prepare, YOU have to stand out. You can do a million extenships but if you're lazy and don't care you won't match either way. Make no mistakes externships are brutal if you really bust your butt like I did. After my 3rd I was ready to be done. In my opinion it's all about quality.

 

[janV88]

Once in school, quality is something you have control over. Quantity isn't. More is better.

 

[ToeTickler323]

I agree one can certainly control performance on externships once in school but if you're arguing that performance on externship 8 is the same as externship 3 you're sadly mistaken. If having a lot of externships was directly correlated to match success wouldn't Barry have had much better success than like the 70% or so that were successful? I was under the impression they have one of the highest externship counts? Either way we're splitting hairs 5,6,7,8? It's gotta stop somewhere, we can't be on externships all 4th year. Personally like I said earlier 5 for me was plenty and it was hard to constantly "stay on" for them all. Also to consider is what are you losing to pick up extra externship months? Is it a medicine rotation? A month in clinic at school? I'm glad I didn't have to sacrifice those things to squeeze in more externships.

 

[pacpod]

You are correct that performance on clerkship 8 most likely won't be the same as #3. But, I still hold that it has the potential to grant one better chances. It is the student's job to perform well no matter the month. Even though the residency situation has improved some over last year, there is still a deficit and to me that says one should do as much as they can to land a spot.

If I had to do it all over again, I would choose my 7 months of pre-interview clerkship again over a smaller amount. Even though the chances of landing the late programs might be smaller, it is still a chance.

It is a student's preference to how many clerkships they want, but in the end I wanted to increase my chances as much as possible.

Just my opinion

 

[dtrack22]

I won't rehash what has already been said. If you don't think having 7 externships is better than 4....no one can help you.

 

[heybrother]

I'm curious what people are doing 4th year if they aren't maximizing externships. I suppose there are a variety of electives and medicine rotations that could round out your education, but I have a weird feeling the answer will be closer to - more time at the school clinic. After spending most of 3rd year there it seems like you'd want to meet some new people and hear some new opinions.

 

[dyk343]

Any student who claims there non-podiatry rotations are legit is full of crap, with the exception of western students. From what I've been told western students do the same rotations as their DO colleagues. At Scholl we do 1 month of medicine, gen surg and ER. ER at cook county was awesome but my gen surg and medicine months were awful and not educational. I was used more like an errand boy then anything else.

Hmmm. My rotations off service have been excellent. I have been held to the same standards as the MD/DO students.


Also, I want to add a general statement to all the responses above. Those who post on SDN likely have the go getter personality and as a result likely have higher grades/rankings. What I am getting at is extern where you sit. If you are in the bottom 50% of the class and are only externing at UPMC, Swedish, Kaiser Bay area, Dekalb, and PSL you might be in hot water once interviews come along. I know several people who were not the best students and got externships at top/competitive programs. These student's scrambled.

I think it would be a wiser decision to "shoot for the stars" for a few of your externships and aim where you likely fit for others.

 

[HaimFeldman]

Any student who claims there non-podiatry rotations are legit is full of crap, with the exception of western students. From what I've been told western students do the same rotations as their DO colleagues. At Scholl we do 1 month of medicine, gen surg and ER. ER at cook county was awesome but my gen surg and medicine months were awful and not educational. I was used more like an errand boy then anything else.

Any student who claims all non-podiatry rotations aren't legit is full of crap. You also have a strange obsession with working with DOs. Depending at which hospital they are assigned for their off-service rotations, NYCPM students are working along side MD, DO, and PA students. For some unfortunate kids who got stuck at the wrong hospital for Internal Medicine, Gen Surg or ER, they are required to pull 12-24 hour shifts alongside the MD residents, where they intubate, learn how to do ultrasound guided IVs, draw ABGs, put staples in skull lacerations, amongst many other things. Of course, there also some students who get the hospitals where nobody cares about you and you go in a few times a week and stand around for a couple hours, or less. It's a mixed bag at NYCPM.