Electives for a resident interetsed in PICU/EM

[Perrotfish]

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As the title says, I'm an R2 interested in PICU and EM as possible fellowships. I'm trying to figure out what electives to requires during my R3 year. We are relatively light on PICU at my residency: only 2 months, and we have a low volume PICU, though we do cross cover the PICU frequently on nights. I'm planning to practice for at least 2 years before applying to fellowship.

Anyway, the electives I was thinking about were:
1 month burn ICU
1 month Cardiac ICU
1 month trauma

Do those sound like good choices? Burn centers and Trauma rotations obviously aren't dedicated Pediatric rotations, so at least one of them might need to go. Any suggestions for other rotations that might help me get used to really really sick kids?

 

[SB100]

I'd maybe throw pedi surgery in there and anesthesia.

 

[umass rower]

I'd second anesthesia, but also keep in mind that one of the hallmarks of both PICU and EM is that you see a lot of variety in terms of pathology. The downside to doing a lot of electives in the ICU is that you will be limited in the number of patients you see each day, and will be at the mercy of what patients are admitted at that particular time. So rather than a cardiac ICU, you could opt for straight cardiology in a place that does high-level cards procedures, so that you get all flavors of the specialty, up to and including the post-op cardiac kids.

In all honesty, I feel like the best strategy for choosing electives is to pick things that you think will round out gaps in your knowledge and be useful to you later. In fellowship, you will get a lot of specialty-specific knowledge imparted. What you're less likely to get are the rarer or one-off situations that will still be useful to know about. For instance, I'm in GI fellowship, and I get lots of GI, hepatology, and nutrition exposure. Electives that I'd recommend to residents interested in GI would be 1-2 GI electives at most (maybe a general GI and a hepatology elective), and do the rest in semi-related fields: pulm because we work with the CF kids and their nutrition a great deal, rheum for a broader perspective on IBD, allergy/immunology for the food allergen stuff, psych to help with functional issues, etc.

 

[michigangirl]

If you're unsure about PICU, or trying to decide then by all means do more PICU. But if you are pretty set on PICU, then do an ID elective, anesthesia is a really great alternative and will get a step ahead on airways and IVs.

 

[DeadCactus]

Ultrasound might be worth considering.