Choosing 3rd year clerkships if interested in Path

[Freddie Mercury]

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Hello, I'm a 2nd year interested in Pathology. We are currently choosing hospital/community sites to do our 3rd year clerkships and I can't find any strategy as to what to look for. My advising office literally had no advice. We had 2 people match path this year, one told me just to do the easiest sites, and I was unable to get hold of the other person. Basically I was told that the only kind of clerkship that really matters for path is getting some actual experience, ie externship during 4th year especially at a place you are interested in doing residency.

I go to a somewhat rural school, and most of our rotation sites don't appear to be very community oriented. From what I understand they don't have full on path labs that can I hang out in when carrying a sample down for surgery or whatever.

So... any tips on what I should look for when choosing 3rd year clerkships?

 

[mlw03]

Choose the site(s) that will allow you to best learn those areas of medicine. Being a good pathologist requires the knowledge one learns in medicine, surgery, ob-gyn, psych, peds, etc. You have plenty of time to be a pathologist later, but limited time to learn as much as you can about the core fields of medicine. Blowing those off will not help you be a good pathologist in the future. If a path program director sees bad grades in your core clerkships, that's a big red flag. Yes, pathology electives are important, and audition rotations can help sometimes.

 

[BlondeDocteur]

Personally I would try to do your core clerkships, particularly surgery and medicine, at the biggest, most specialized hospitals available to you. Pathology is a field that thrives on zebras and it would be great to see as many as possible. On surgery in particular, see if your preceptors/ residents will permit you to scrub out of a case every now and again to 'follow the specimen,' particularly if it's an oncologic or transplant case that will require a frozen section.