Electives for 3rd Year

[sunealoneal]

Hey all.

I'm a 2nd year DO student who was fortunate enough to learn about this field during my first year. I've posted here a few times and have gotten some excellent guidance on here or via PM. I've been able to accumulate what I consider a respectable amount of research for someone in my position/setting, and hope to cap that off with a 4-5 week stint in a rad onc lab this summer after I get done with Step 1.

We're in the process of figuring out schedules for next year, and my very first rotation for 3rd year will probably be an elective. Later on that year, I'll have medical as well as surgical selective.

Is there a particular elective that could best benefit me? Radiology for example, so I can get better at imaging in general? Maybe palliative, since I've heard from a doctor that they were asked if they had any hospice experience during their residency interview? Or anesthesia, a field I'd be interested in pursing if my application ends up not being competitive enough for rad onc?

Thanks!

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[Carlin]

This feels too obvious so I don't know if I'm missing something, but can you do a rad onc elective?

 

[sunealoneal]

This feels too obvious so I don't know if I'm missing something, but can you do a rad onc elective?

It's not explicitly listed as an option, but I'm going to be asking an admin about that on Monday. I posted under the assumption that it would not be possible. Honestly, I assumed that other med schools didn't let their students do a rad onc rotation until their 4th year.

 

[CaesarRO]

It's not explicitly listed as an option, but I'm going to be asking an admin about that on Monday. I posted under the assumption that it would not be possible. Honestly, I assumed that other med schools didn't let their students do a rad onc rotation until their 4th year.

A lot of the schools did require you to be in your fourth year, IIRC. But there might be some that don't. I know, for example, that Thomas Jefferson in Philly has a 3rd year elective for their students with Rad Onc as a "surgical subspecialty". I don't know if you'd be able to do that as an away though.

As to the question at hand, I think that if you can do electives in medical oncology, or maybe even pathology, that could expose you to tumor boards and concepts about staging patients. Palliative would work well, too. I think the key is exposure to care of actual cancer patients. Any of these, I think, would help when it came time for your 4th year aways

 

[medgator]

It's not explicitly listed as an option, but I'm going to be asking an admin about that on Monday. I posted under the assumption that it would not be possible. Honestly, I assumed that other med schools didn't let their students do a rad onc rotation until their 4th year.

Our med school let people move it up to 3rd if it was something you were strongly interested in

 

[sunealoneal]

As to the question at hand, I think that if you can do electives in medical oncology, or maybe even pathology, that could expose you to tumor boards and concepts about staging patients. Palliative would work well, too. I think the key is exposure to care of actual cancer patients. Any of these, I think, would help when it came time for your 4th year aways

Thanks for the suggestions, I did not consider pathology. I'll keep these in mind.

Our med school let people move it up to 3rd if it was something you were strongly interested in

Maybe I'll find another school's catalog that does this and show it to admin. Might get lucky.

 

[2012MD]

If available I would recommend you take a medical oncology elective focusing on outpatient care. This would give you good exposure to oncology and learn an lot about cancer treatment but in a less stressful environment, since it isn't an audition like your rad onc rotations will be. It also helps you to get a feel of how a busy outpatient clinic runs since most of your time during MS3 is spent in the inpatient setting. This is the advice we typically give to rising MS3s at our institution and the feedback has been uniformly positive.

 

[sunealoneal]

If available I would recommend you take a medical oncology elective focusing on outpatient care. This would give you good exposure to oncology and learn an lot about cancer treatment but in a less stressful environment, since it isn't an audition like your rad onc rotations will be. It also helps you to get a feel of how a busy outpatient clinic runs since most of your time during MS3 is spent in the inpatient setting. This is the advice we typically give to rising MS3s at our institution and the feedback has been uniformly positive.

Thanks for the help everyone. I've done some legwork and will probably have a non-audition rad onc rotation secured during my 3rd year. My medical selective will probably be med onc.

I don't know if M3s typically do this, but would surgical onc be useful as well? I don't really know much about that field to be completely honest.

 

[navigator]

If available I would recommend you take a medical oncology elective focusing on outpatient care. This would give you good exposure to oncology and learn an lot about cancer treatment but in a less stressful environment, since it isn't an audition like your rad onc rotations will be. It also helps you to get a feel of how a busy outpatient clinic runs since most of your time during MS3 is spent in the inpatient setting. This is the advice we typically give to rising MS3s at our institution and the feedback has been uniformly positive.

Very helpful feedback, thanks!