Crazy plan?

[UCLAstudent]

I'm in the process of scheduling my third-year rotations. I'm starting out with 12 weeks of surgery (have no choice --- it was assigned to me). I was planning to do 6 weeks of Ob/Gyn immediately after surgery. My rationale is that I don't want to go into either specialty and would like to get both of them out of the way early on. Would this be suicide? My schedule has to be either surgery --> Ob/Gyn --> pediatrics, or surgery --> pediatrics --> Ob/Gyn. For what it's worth, I'm interested in peds.

Thanks for any advice.

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[Pianoboe01]

I'm in the process of scheduling my third-year rotations. I'm starting out with 12 weeks of surgery (have no choice --- it was assigned to me). I was planning to do 6 weeks of Ob/Gyn immediately after surgery. My rationale is that I don't want to go into either specialty and would like to get both of them out of the way early on. Would this be suicide? My schedule has to be either surgery --> Ob/Gyn --> pediatrics, or surgery --> pediatrics --> Ob/Gyn. For what it's worth, I'm interested in peds.

Thanks for any advice.

I can't answer your question since I'm also a 2nd year, but at my school we have to do *16 weeks* of surgery back to back in our "surgery block." Gen Surg, OB/GYN, and surgical subspecialty. Yikes!

 

[KidDr]

I'm in the process of scheduling my third-year rotations. I'm starting out with 12 weeks of surgery (have no choice --- it was assigned to me). I was planning to do 6 weeks of Ob/Gyn immediately after surgery. My rationale is that I don't want to go into either specialty and would like to get both of them out of the way early on. Would this be suicide? My schedule has to be either surgery --> Ob/Gyn --> pediatrics, or surgery --> pediatrics --> Ob/Gyn. For what it's worth, I'm interested in peds.

Thanks for any advice.

If you want to go into peds, I think surgery-->OB/GYN-->peds is better than surgery-->peds-->OB/GYN. The only issue is that either way, you're going to be tired by the time you get to peds, but you'll be fine. Any chance that some of your surgery rotation can be in peds surgery?? I was able to do that (& my surgery rotation was right before my peds rotation), and it was really helpful.

 

[Horseradish99]

I did Surgery first, followed by OB. Since everything was so new to me, the long hours and horrendous schedule didn't really phase me. Once I finished those harder rotations and moved on to other ones, I was happily surprised at how much easier life seemed! It's nice to get them out of the way if you are fairly sure they aren't your cup of tea.

 

[medgirl20]

surg - obs - paeds would be my prefered way especially if your obs includes neonates you have some basics for paeds where you'll see a fair amount of prems and congenital anomalies in paeds.

 

[Hard24Get]

I'm in the process of scheduling my third-year rotations. I'm starting out with 12 weeks of surgery (have no choice --- it was assigned to me). I was planning to do 6 weeks of Ob/Gyn immediately after surgery. My rationale is that I don't want to go into either specialty and would like to get both of them out of the way early on. Would this be suicide? My schedule has to be either surgery --> Ob/Gyn --> pediatrics, or surgery --> pediatrics --> Ob/Gyn. For what it's worth, I'm interested in peds.

Thanks for any advice.

I ditto the "you might be tired" advice, but urge you to try and get a community ob/gyn rotation if your school has them. Mine was basically 8-5pm with no call out in semi-private practice land. This will make things much easier for you. You should also do better on the Peds shelf exam because many things (ie congenital infections, genetic abnomalities) will be tested by both fields.

Also, as mentioned your ob portion should produce at least a few neonates , so make sure to examine them right along with mom and try to cozy up to the pediatricians while they are doing their thing after a C-section.

PS. Great avatar - I love the Luck Dragon!

 

[DebDynamite]

Well, that's basically what I did. I started in July with 2 months of surgery, then (my schedule is kind of odd) 1 month of Peds wards, next a month of OBGYN. My call schedule was Q3 in surgery, Q4 Peds wards, then back to Q3 in OBGYN. All but two of my call nights, I was up 90% of the time. I really thought I would die, I was scared somehow that this was what my new life would be like (even though in my rational brain I knew it wouldn't last forever, I was sleep deprived/paraniod), BUT....

Now I am so glad it's over, because it has all been downhill. The last 1/3 of my 3rd year is almost like a 4th year, and I'm rested enough to plan 4th year. So, in retrospect, I say go for it. Just be warned that it's intense.

 

[UCLAstudent]

Thanks, everyone. I'm gonna suck it up and go for it. Hopefully I get what I signed up for!

 

[Jaysun]

I would reccomend that you not take surgery and ob-gyn back to back like that. I mean... even though you want to basically bypass them... why kill yourself in the process. This will likely be the only time you experience these rotations, and you owe it to yourself to at least give them a chance and allow yourself to enjoy them to some extent. I know that I was suprised to find see how much I actually enjoyed and learned during my surgical rotation. Hours suck big time, but thats the breaks.

 

[UCLAstudent]

I would reccomend that you not take surgery and ob-gyn back to back like that. I mean... even though you want to basically bypass them... why kill yourself in the process. This will likely be the only time you experience these rotations, and you owe it to yourself to at least give them a chance and allow yourself to enjoy them to some extent. I know that I was suprised to find see how much I actually enjoyed and learned during my surgical rotation. Hours suck big time, but thats the breaks.

You're about 4 hours too late (the deadline to submit was this morning). No worries, I'm planning on enjoying (or trying to enjoy) all of my rotations. I was just trying to come up with the best strategy with respect to peds.

 

[QuinnB]

Don't worry about it, I think surg-ob then peds will be fine. Peds, at least where I trained, is one of the harder rotations (up there with IM and surg) and so no matter what, you'll be "killed." Having ob first is huge for peds considering you won't have to worry about trying to learn all of the mom and in utero issues during peds (teratogens, L and D, STDs, etc...).

 

[NNguyenMD]

I'm in the process of scheduling my third-year rotations. I'm starting out with 12 weeks of surgery (have no choice --- it was assigned to me). I was planning to do 6 weeks of Ob/Gyn immediately after surgery. My rationale is that I don't want to go into either specialty and would like to get both of them out of the way early on. Would this be suicide? My schedule has to be either surgery --> Ob/Gyn --> pediatrics, or surgery --> pediatrics --> Ob/Gyn. For what it's worth, I'm interested in peds.

Thanks for any advice.

I'm not a UCLA student, but I did a Trauma Surgery elective with a couple of third year students on the General Surgery clerkship at Cedars Sinai. Its a pretty cush three weeks. I hear Harbor is a busy place.

 

[DrJ105]

For me it worked to have what I wanted to do third because that's when my increasing ability intersected with my decreasing motivation, but I don't think it really matters. It isn't to hard to work yourself up to do a great job in your area of interest regardless of where it's scheduled.