Clinical electives to take 4th year of med school before anesthesiology residency?

[immaxf]

I'm a 3rd year and starting to plan my 4th year electives, and will eventually apply to anesthesiology residencies and am thinking about a peds fellowship afterward. I'd like to take clinical electives that will help build a foundation before residency. Here's a list (sorted by category) of what looks interesting and potentially useful to me. Any advice as to which of these sounds particularly useful would be appreciated.

Cardiology
- Clinical cardiology
- Clinical cardiology consults
- Acute cardiac care (cardiac ICU)
- Electrophysiology

Emergency medicine
- Emergency ultrasound
- Emergency medicine

ENT
- Intro to ENT

Peds
- (Many subspecialties, no anesthesia though)

Pulmonology
- Medical ICU
- Pulmonary consult service

Radiology
- Peds radiology
- Diagnostic radiology
- Interventional radiology
- Neuroradiology
- MSK radiology
- Cardiothoracic radiology
- Abdominal radiology
- Ultrasound
- Diagnostic radiology

Surgery
- Plastic surgery
- General pediatric surgery
- Orthopedic surgery

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[Mehd School]

Do the rotations that let you go home at lunch. Seriously.

 

[teacher2md]

I would recommend MICU for sure. You'll learn about a bunch of relevant concepts like vents, pressors, respiratory physiology, etc.

As an MS4 I almost regretted working that hard, but in retrospect it was really useful. It was good to learn the ropes as a Med student with 2 patients to follow, because I started intern year with MICU and was responsible for ~8 patients daily.

I would also recommend the cards consult or EP rotations to learn about CV physiology and EKGs.

 

[anbuitachi]

if you realy want to prepare for anesthesiology residency those do sound good. but do realize you will probably forget most of it before you reach anesthesia years! with that said ICU are good rotations. Id highly recommend Ultrasound; radiology. EKG is ok. I took EKG in ms4 and forgot all of it

 

[Wolverines83]

Don’t do peds, surgery or ent. Don’t do emergency medicine. Don’t do ultrasound. Don’t do cardiology. Don’t do pulmonology.

Do radiology (Home early), do anesthesia (residents will send you home early as 4th year). Do random urgent care electives where you don’t even have to show up. My point is, do not work hard towards the end of fourth year.

You’re gonna forget all your “anesthesia knowledge” before ca-1 year anyway. Use 4th year as a time to chill because after that, you’re gonna be shocked at how little time you have for fun

 

[Pharmado]

I graduated this past summer. I can say that residency is exhausting, frustrating and filled with more learning opportunities than you can handle. There are very limited opportunities to do what you want to do, but endless opportunities to learn. If you want to take some good learning electives early in 4th year then feel free, but this is literally the last time that you can take time for yourself and do things that you enjoy before the medical world fully engulfs you. My guess would be that you will retain around 10% of what you learn 4th year by the time that you start your CA-1 years. You are going to spend 60-80 hours a week in the hospital working for the next 4 years, plus time at home studying and preparing for cases. Make 4th year the best year of your life by focusing on yourself. If you want an easy rotation that actually will benefit you, find a good ultrasound rotation that gets you out before lunch. Do easy away electives in places you've always wanted to live and spend your time enjoying the local culture. You won't get to the end of residency and wish that you had taken harder electives in 4th year. If you pass on good experiences, you will get to the end of residency and wish you had taken more opportunities to have experiences outside of medicine.

 

[AdmiralChz]

I continue to be absolutely shocked at the inability of new interns to be able to perform a basic chart review in a reasonable amount of time / H&P documentation as well as discharge summaries. Even daily progress notes are often horrendous. These are essential things you’ll need to know how to do from day 1 so make sure you make your Sub-I count.

Documentation doesn’t appear to be a big part of MS-3 curricula (in fact, I was chastised as an intern for asking the student to write up H&Ps and discharge summaries ahead of me for giving out scut work). A rotation spent in an ICU and on a consult service can really help in this regard.

 

[Psai]

I continue to be absolutely shocked at the inability of new interns to be able to perform a basic chart review in a reasonable amount of time / H&P documentation as well as discharge summaries. Even daily progress notes are often horrendous. These are essential things you’ll need to know how to do from day 1 so make sure you make your Sub-I count.

Documentation doesn’t appear to be a big part of MS-3 curricula (in fact, I was chastised as an intern for asking the student to write up H&Ps and discharge summaries ahead of me for giving out scut work). A rotation spent in an ICU and on a consult service can really help in this regard.

I remember what it's like to be an intern. It's tough to try to document while one patient is causing mayhem, nurses are paging you nonstop about another patient, you still need to call 3 consults, etc.

It's easy to me now but it took me probably 6 months to really get it down and I worked on my sub-i in the icu.

Notes are not scut, who came up with that crap?

 

[jeesapeesa]

I'm a 3rd year and starting to plan my 4th year electives, and will eventually apply to anesthesiology residencies and am thinking about a peds fellowship afterward. I'd like to take clinical electives that will help build a foundation before residency. Here's a list (sorted by category) of what looks interesting and potentially useful to me. Any advice as to which of these sounds particularly useful would be appreciated.

Cardiology
- Clinical cardiology
- Clinical cardiology consults
- Acute cardiac care (cardiac ICU)
- Electrophysiology

Emergency medicine
- Emergency ultrasound
- Emergency medicine

ENT
- Intro to ENT

Peds
- (Many subspecialties, no anesthesia though)

Pulmonology
- Medical ICU
- Pulmonary consult service

Radiology
- Peds radiology
- Diagnostic radiology
- Interventional radiology
- Neuroradiology
- MSK radiology
- Cardiothoracic radiology
- Abdominal radiology
- Ultrasound
- Diagnostic radiology

Surgery
- Plastic surgery
- General pediatric surgery
- Orthopedic surgery

i took radiology and went home at 11 am. gives you time to take a nap and go to the gym, run. read a non-medical book. enjoy time with your loved one/partner. your well-being mentally and physically are your foundations.

 

[Wolverines83]

For the record, I commend your motivation to try and prepare as much as possible but I think you’ll find that your time will be better spent doing non-medical stuff. I’m sure your motivation will serve you well once you’re a resident but for fourth year, take a break!

 

[Laryngophed]

I remember what it's like to be an intern. It's tough to try to document while one patient is causing mayhem, nurses are paging you nonstop about another patient, you still need to call 3 consults, etc.

It's easy to me now but it took me probably 6 months to really get it down and I worked on my sub-i in the icu.

Notes are not scut, who came up with that crap?

Notes aren’t scut, but they aren’t patient care either. They are a communication tool. A note should be useful, but rarely does it need to be as exhaustive as lots of medicine notes.