Elective Rotations - What should I do with them?

[TexasTriathlete]

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Right now, I am pretty dead set on trauma surgery. I know this is hard to get into, and I know that I could very well change my mind about 10 times before it is time to apply for residency, but for the purposes of this thread, we will be assuming that I will perform well enough on the boards, etc. to get a surgery residency that will prep me for trauma, and that I will not be changing my mind.

Let's say I have five elective rotations. What should I do with them? Should I load up on trauma surgery and just do a bunch of them at sites where I might want to apply for residency? Or should I do other surgery sub-specialties that I might face as a trauma surgeon anyway?

Suggestions?

 

[cyclohexanol]

Right now, I am pretty dead set on trauma surgery. I know this is hard to get into, and I know that I could very well change my mind about 10 times before it is time to apply for residency, but for the purposes of this thread, we will be assuming that I will perform well enough on the boards, etc. to get a surgery residency that will prep me for trauma, and that I will not be changing my mind.

Let's say I have five elective rotations. What should I do with them? Should I load up on trauma surgery and just do a bunch of them at sites where I might want to apply for residency? Or should I do other surgery sub-specialties that I might face as a trauma surgeon anyway?

Suggestions?

Some schools, such as COMP, only allow you to do 3 elective rotations in any given field/specialty. So what many students do is rotations in other specialties at the primary hospital where you want to land a residency. For example, you want to do trauma surg, so maybe do some rads or gas rotations at that hospital and you'll still be interacting with the trauma surg guys all the time.

 

[TexasTriathlete]

That's another thing... should I load up on rotations at the same hospital, or should I try and spread it out? Is it a bad idea to put all my eggs in one basket?

 

[cyclohexanol]

That's another thing... should I load up on rotations at the same hospital, or should I try and spread it out? Is it a bad idea to put all my eggs in one basket?

I wouldn't consider it putting all your eggs in one basket.

Here is my take: if you really like that hospital, load up.

You will end up applying to many programs that you have never rotated through. It isn't as if you don't have a chance if you haven't rotated through their program/hospital. I would say that most programs would prefer to have seen a candidate in action to see how competent they are, how they work with the staff, etc... but it won't necessarily exclude you from their program if they haven't seen that.

 

[TexasTriathlete]

That makes sense.

I really like the surgery residency that UT-Houston has at the Texas Medical Center. It is a very high-volume trauma center, and it will get me licensed to do trauma without fellowship. Plus, I'm wondering if being a Texas resident would benefit me at all in applying for residency there.

Thanks for the info.