Early elective? No idea what to pick

[engineeredout]

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So there is a strong chance I'm going to be stuck doing an elective 3rd year as either my first or second rotation.

The question becomes, what the hell do I do with an elective that early on? Not only would I not know anything thus making an ass out of myself on a specialty, but I'd probably have to complete core prereqs to even be able to do one right?

I suppose I could end up doing something like IM, but with three months of IM in 3rd year I'd had to use up an elective by doing something I'm going to have to do anyway.

Is there anything useful I can do, or will I just end up doing a core elective?

Thanks.



As an aside, when is a good time to know what specialty you want to try to match to? I have no idea what I want to do, but I'm asking because picking our 3rd year schedule also decides our fouth year schedule.

 

[Depakote]

I had my 3rd year elective in September.

I wound up picking anesthesiology because I enjoyed the lectures on the subject and went to a surgery club meeting where the anesthesiology PD came and spoke about the profession. At the time, I thought I wanted to do peds.

Anyway, I didn't have the strongest foundation... but I enjoyed the elective enough to realize that it was what I wanted to do. (definitely more than peds)

So I wound up doing a 4th year elective in it... now I know what I'm doing and I'm still having fun.



In general, it's good to try to figure out what you want to do by late spring. That lets you apply for aways and make connections in the department. Still, I know 4th years that just now figured out what they'll be doing and I'm sure they'll do just fine.



Anyway, use your elective to look at something you want to get some exposure to but might not have the opportunity to later. If you like it, you can do it again when you have a better fund of knowledge as a 4th year.

 

[MDROCKSTAR]

I'm finishing up an elective right now in Anesthesiology as my third rotation. I think it is a good choice for an elective early on because you gain exposure to a variety of different surgical specialties (Ortho, ENT, General Surgery, OB/GYN, etc.) Plus, you can get practice on bag ventilation and intubation.

 

[engineeredout]

You can do an anesthesia rotation without having done any of the core rotations? I didn't even know if you could do it as a 3rd year at all. Anesthesia would be a pretty sweet rotation.

How do we pick a specialty during 3rd year without having experienced all the different ones? I mean we don't do things like EM until fourth year, and depending on the scheduling it can be somewhat late into fourth year that the EM rotations come up.

 

[Depakote]

You can do an anesthesia rotation without having done any of the core rotations? I didn't even know if you could do it as a 3rd year at all. Anesthesia would be a pretty sweet rotation.

This might be school dependent. Some schools have 3rd year electives that let you do Anesthesiology/Neuro/EM/Rads/Etc. Others might not.

How do we pick a specialty during 3rd year without having experienced all the different ones? I mean we don't do things like EM until fourth year, and depending on the scheduling it can be somewhat late into fourth year that the EM rotations come up.

For me it was finding something that I really liked and realizing I really didn't like the other stuff.

Loved Anesthesiology 😍

Hated Surgery
Hated Clinic Medicine
Hated Ward Medicine

Didn't leave too much to think about.

 

[peppy]

I wouldn't use the elective on something you'll get exposed to plenty on required rotations (like IM). I'd use it for something that most schools don't give students much exposure to, like a sub-specialty or a lesser known field like PM&R.

 

[pianoman511]

I had my elective first for third year and did a split rotation - anesthesia and radiology. It was a pretty good combo and since I did it at a small community hospital and neither were very busy it was just the right amount of time.

 

[st2205]

Radiology sounds like it would be good in terms of not necessarily needing all the core rotations as well as providing good understanding for when you later do those. But then again, what do I know?

 

[Psychiatrypd]

Do not pick an elective that you are already doing a core rotation on. Pick something that you will not be doing.
If you like doing everything, family medicine is great. You will learn things that will help you in your other rotations. If you then do family medicine again later on, then you will still have plenty to do. In family medicine, the patients are usually outpatients so you are allowed to do more since the residents are not afraid the patient will die while you are working them up.
Pathology is always nice if you like that kind of thing. It helps in some of your other rotations. Personally, I like my patients to be alive and awake.
You want a setting with patients who are not really, really sick. If they are really sick, you will pretty much just watch the residents.