Elective rotations 3rd year . . . a plus?

[87138]

In trying to determine which medical school I will attend this Fall, I noticed that one of them offers two elective/selective blocks during the 3rd year clinical rotations while my other top choice does not (at least that I can discern from the website). I have heard that it's a good idea to go to a school that has electives/selectives so that if you are interested in something besides the big 7 basic rotations, you can have some actual exposure to it before planning your residency applications (especially since some specialties match early). Otherwise you're scrambling to squeeze in an elective at the beginning of 4th year I guess.

Any opinions?

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[bodonid]

So does that mean two core rotations are squeezed into 4th year?

 

[87138]

So does that mean two core rotations are squeezed into 4th year?

Well, the one school about which I am speaking (which has the selectives) is Penn State.

http://www.hmc.psu.edu/md/curriculum/index.html?from=current

That site gives a quick overview of the curriculum. I'm thinking maybe they shorten some of the other rotations to fit in the selective rotations? I'm not 100% sure how this compares to every school out there.

 

[TheRealMD]

Unless you are doing some core rotations in your 2nd year, it sounds like some squeezing is going on. And I'm not sure you want to put core rotations in your 4th year unless it's around the June/July time frame. That stuff is looked at in your residency application.

And I'm sure that Penn State probably has some requirement that medicine and surgery must be finished before your 3rd year is over.

 

[bodonid]

My school's peds rotation is 6wks instead of 5, our family med is 6wks instead of four, and we are required to do a 4wk rotation in neurology in addition to psychiatry, and our psych rotation is 6wks instead of 4.

However, we can move one of these to 4th year in order to do an elective, or that is how I understand it. Not sure which ones we are allowed to move, or whether these numbers are set in stone.

As far as whether yours is a plus, I'd give a *cautious* (and uninformed) yes.

 

[bjolly]

I'd say it's a plus. My school doesn't allow any electives before 4th year and I think it's very hard on people who want to do something that's not one of the core rotations. Even if you think you want to be, say, a radiologist or an ophthalmologist, you can't be sure until you've done a rotation in it, imo. If you don't get to do that until 4th year, then you don't have much time to get ready to apply, especially if you do that rotation at the beginning of 4th year, find out you don't want to be a radiologist/ophthalmologist/whatever and have to come up with plan B.

 

[87138]

I'd say it's a plus. My school doesn't allow any electives before 4th year and I think it's very hard on people who want to do something that's not one of the core rotations. Even if you think you want to be, say, a radiologist or an ophthalmologist, you can't be sure until you've done a rotation in it, imo. If you don't get to do that until 4th year, then you don't have much time to get ready to apply, especially if you do that rotation at the beginning of 4th year, find out you don't want to be a radiologist/ophthalmologist/whatever and have to come up with plan B.

Do you go to Maryland or Hopkins? Maryland is the other school I'm deciding between, and it doesn't look like they offer 3rd year electives.

 

[smq123]

Do you go to Maryland or Hopkins? Maryland is the other school I'm deciding between, and it doesn't look like they offer 3rd year electives.

First off, congratulations on a) getting in!, and b) thinking about important issues like these. Everyone seems to base their decision to go to School A because it has "nicer lecture halls" than School B, or whatever trivial reason...

Maryland's website isn't very specific, so you should probably try talking to students from Maryland if you get a chance. Maybe scoping out old Maryland threads on SDN, or talking to students there if they offer a second look. It's hard to say - for instance, they require 12 weeks of "surgery" - but that could be broken up into 4 weeks of ortho, 4 weeks of ophtho, and 4 weeks of anesthesiology...or it could be 12 weeks of straight general surgery. You don't know until you can ask around.

Even if you go to a school that does not offer any electives before 4th year, that can still work - you just need to be smart about it. From the very beginning of second or third year, start thinking about shadowing people in those specialties that you think you might like, but won't rotate through. For instance, if histo really excited you, think about shadowing a pathologist or two. Even if that school doesn't offer electives during third year, this is not necessarily going to stop you from matching in things like urology, anesthesia, rads, ophtho, etc. You just have to be smart about it - which seems to be the common theme to EVERYTHING in med school.

 

[MrBurns10]

It's definitely an advantage and, though I wouldn't base your decision solely on that, it's worth quite a bit in my opinion. My school offers 3 elective periods during the clinical year, which everyone has found to be really helpful in both exposing ourselves to something we think we might want to do as well as having a relatively chill two or four-week period to just enjoy ourselves and learn without worrying about tests or grades or whatever.

 

[87138]

smq and mrburns thank you very much. It's great to get opinions from current med students.

 

[notdeadyet]

It's definitely an advantage and, though I wouldn't base your decision solely on that, it's worth quite a bit in my opinion.

I agree. The inability to do electives in third year is a drawback, in my opinion, but not a deal killer.

If you have all required third year courses, then if you have more than one non-core specialty you're interested in, it makes things very challenging. If you do an anesthesiology and neurology rotation at the beginning of your fourth year to decide between the two, then schedule an away rotation, then a sub-internship, you're cutting it pretty close in terms of your application timing.

You can make a better decision early and get a more focused app ready if you have third year electives. My school has all third year required, but I didn't mind because we have a skewed schedule and take our Step 1 in March and start third year rotations in April.

 

[bjolly]

Do you go to Maryland or Hopkins? Maryland is the other school I'm deciding between, and it doesn't look like they offer 3rd year electives.

I'm at Maryland, and no they don't offer any 3rd year electives. It's one of the only things I don't like about the school. I'd still go here over Hopkins in a heartbeat, fwiw.

 

[diosa428]

We also do electives during clinical rotations (I go to the same school as MrBurns) and I'd say it's definitely an advantage. I can't imagine going through third year thinking or knowing that I want to do something that's not a core rotation and not being able to feel the specialty out until I'm a fourth year and trying to figure out my match stuff, especially if I was interested in one of the specialties in the early match. It can obviously be done, but if you like to have everything planned out (like me) it seems like a disadvantageous system. Also, the schedule you posted makes it seem like the core rotations are still all in the third year, which is also an advantage. Honestly, our school shortens our core rotations so that we can fit in the electives, and I prefer that. I think I would have died if I had to do more than 8 weeks of medicine or surgery.

 

[LucidSplash]

Maryland's website isn't very specific, so you should probably try talking to students from Maryland if you get a chance. Maybe scoping out old Maryland threads on SDN, or talking to students there if they offer a second look. It's hard to say - for instance, they require 12 weeks of "surgery" - but that could be broken up into 4 weeks of ortho, 4 weeks of ophtho, and 4 weeks of anesthesiology...or it could be 12 weeks of straight general surgery. You don't know until you can ask around.

bjolly is correct there are no 3rd year electives at Maryland. This does make it important to plan the first couple months of 4th year well. I know that this provides some conflicts for those classmates of mine doing HPSP as Maryland does not allow them to do their military rotations 3rd year (when they are supposed to do them). I'm not sure how they're working it out and whether they'll be able to get special permission or not.

Also, our surgery rotations are not 12 straight weeks of general surgery. The curriculum is:
1. 3 weeks at Shock Trauma on a trauma team.
2. 1 week on anesthesia
3. 1 week on orthopedic surgery
4. 1 week on ear nose and throat surgery
5. 3 weeks on a general surgery service
6. 3 weeks on a specialty surgery service