Clinical Rotations

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studbud

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  1. Medical Student
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Can someone provide insight on what your daily life is like when you do rotations in your 3rd and 4th year? Do you do hands on stuff or is it mainly just watching? What are hours like? Do you still go to classes or have schoolwork when you are on rotations? Thanks!
 
There is an entire forum devoted to clinical rotations. You are free to peruse there for your answers, but be aware that should you post a thread it will likely be moved as you are pre-med.

Short answer: depends. Depends on the rotation, the attending, the hospital, the residents, and you. Surgery hours tend to be long. Ambulatory tend to be short. Wards are long. As a student you may or may not be subject to ACGME rules (as of now such compliance is totally up to the schools to regulate. Many students are still doing 24-30 hour calls.) On surgery you may or may not be scrubbing in. If you scrub in you may or may not be only a retractor monkey. On the other hand, I was first assist on most surgeries in my third year, including a total hip and ex-lap for metastatic cancer multiple resection. On wards you will likely have patients assigned to you and have oversight of a resident. You will likely have inservice exams every rotation, have to do a presentation or two every month, and will also be studying for boards. All that in addition to hours that range anywhere from 8 - 24 hours per day or more. On a few rotations you may have the fortune of every weekend off, but likely you will be lucky to have one day off in seven.

Elective rotations are a different ballgame. If it is an audition rotation, you will be putting in the hours. I did away electives where I had homework, presentations, and weekly exams. I had others with every weekend off and easy peasy hours. Classes usually consist of weekly conferences that you will be expected to attend.

Your next questions will likely be geared toward what the heck I meant by some of the above. My pre-emptive answer to that is to worry about actually getting IN and getting TO third and fourth year. That is at least two years away and a lot can change between now and then. And like I stated above, also depends on where you go to school, the hospital, the attending, the residents, and you.
 
Wow, well thank you for that information! I'll do some more research as the time gets closer as well as looking in the other forum.
 
Yea, the quick/easy answer is that it varies..... a LOT. Depends on the hospital/clinic, what service you're on, what residents you're with, etc...

On one end it could be decent "normal" office type hours (or less) where you're basically just shadowing a physician or resident and not doing much. On the other end it could involve working 80+ hour weeks on a surgery service where you get to scrub it on and assist on multiple surgeries.

So it depends. On my peds month I was mainly in clinic not doing a whole lot besides following the doc in and out of rooms. And I've been on a surgery where it was just me and attending and I basically was first assist on each case and came in for calls just as he would.
 
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