Externship length

[monkey7247]

Advertisement - Members don't see this ad

Hey all, I searched briefly but was unable to find what I'm looking for. I'm currently setting up my 4th year schedule and trying to figure out externships.

I'm a reach candidate for ophtho, middle third of class, decent board score. I have 2 questions:
1) How long should externships be, specifically 2w vs 1m?
2) How many externship for a reach candidate?

Right now I'm looking @ University of South Fl and Medical College of Georgia for externships. Any experience? Thanks!

 

[rubensan]

No experience at those 2 programs myself. I think 1 month is a better idea. It gives you more time to get to know the program and them more time to get to know you. Try to make sure, before you set up the rotation, that you will get plenty of faculty interaction. That is who you need to ultimately impress...esp if you think you are a "reach."

 

[samdo]

No experience at those 2 programs myself. I think 1 month is a better idea. It gives you more time to get to know the program and them more time to get to know you. Try to make sure, before you set up the rotation, that you will get plenty of faculty interaction. That is who you need to ultimately impress...esp if you think you are a "reach."

what is a reach candidate? if you answer i can make a suggestion for you

 

[monkey7247]

what is a reach candidate? if you answer i can make a suggestion for you

Got the "reach" designation by the dean of student affairs. Middle third of the class, board score of 236, some leadership stuff, club stuff, 1 research publication.

He basically said it was possible to match but will require a broad set of programs to apply to.

 

[rubensan]

i would pass on your CV, board scores and grades to someone in your ophtho department (chair, program director, or someone with lots of contacts). tell them you are extremely interested in optho, ask them to be honest with you and together generate a list of programs that they feel would be a good match for you based on the above criteria. not to underscore your dean (unless he is an ophthalmologist), but ophtho *is* a small field so I would leave it up to someone in the field to designate you as a "reach."

Ruben

 

[monkey7247]

i would pass on your CV, board scores and grades to someone in your ophtho department (chair, program director, or someone with lots of contacts). tell them you are extremely interested in optho, ask them to be honest with you and together generate a list of programs that they feel would be a good match for you based on the above criteria. not to underscore your dean (unless he is an ophthalmologist), but ophtho *is* a small field so I would leave it up to someone in the field to designate you as a "reach."

Ruben

Are you suggesting I'll have my will to live crushed come January?



Just playing, I already met with the ophtho director, he said the same. Possible, but have a back-up plan.

Is anyone saying anything besides 1m?

 

[rubensan]

of course i am not saying that! what i was trying to get at is surround yourself with people that are going to help you in the next six months. so whether you do a 2 or 4 week rotation at University of South Fl or Medical College of Georgia does not matter as much as who you will interact with while you are there. hanging out with the residents and learning how to look through the slip lamp and using all the equipment is fun, but also make sure you get to spend some time with the faculty that have a say regarding who gets into the program. there are some programs that have their visiting students rotate through VA clinics and they learn a ton, but get virtually no faculty interaction...just make sure that's not what happens to students at these programs that you are interested in.

my advice to you is this: try to learn some basic ophtho at your own institution, that way you know how to do a few things like how to turn the slit lamp on and look through it when you go to the places you are really interested in. 🙂 work hard, be enthused, pick up a little research project while you are there and tell these places that you are really interested in their programs. bottom line, at the end of your 4 weeks, leave the program with people saying "wow, that monkey7247 kid is a great student, i'd like to see him here in a few years." 😀 and remember you are always going to run into other students who have better grades or higher board scores or more publications than you, BUT that doesn't mean they will make a better resident than you...and program directors and department chairs know that! try to look at all of this from their perspective, of course they want someone who is academically qualified in their program, but they also want to end up with residents that they can live with for 3 years!

hope this helps!
Ruben

 

[JR]

Ruben brings a lot of good points. However, do not forget that ophtho is unlike any other field. There is not much you can do in clinic as a medical student, unless you have been involved with the field before. The reality is that at academic institutions clinics are usually very busy (especially at USC 🙂 ) and unless you "hit the ground running" there is a very little chance you will impress anyone to the point of "wow, so-and-so is worthy to come here". This is especially true for more desirable programs.

Don't get me wrong, I do think that doing an externship may help match at a particular program or get a strong LOR. But I don't believe that being enthusiastic and learning how to turn on the slit lamp will necessarily do the trick. I rotated through 2 strong programs during my 4th year- at one, there were 4 med students rotating through the department at a given time, they were all from ivy league schools (except me 🙂 ), 2 knew how to refract well, and 1 MD/PhD managed to co-author 2 papers over 1 month period (pretty much spent days in clinic and nights at the lab).

There is also that old argument whether or not to do externships at all. If you have strong enough grades and you generally "look good on paper", doing an externship at a particular program may help or hurt your chances of matching there (what if you rub someone the wrong way?). You can minimize this chance by carefully selecting what attending to work with, etc.

I hope this helps. Again, by no means I am advocating one way or the other. I just think plenty of things should be considered before deciding to do a particular externship.

JR

 

[rubensan]

Sure, I agree with JR on many points, especially the part on carefully considering where you do a rotation and who you work with. I also agree that at the big programs, UCLA, USC (I can't speak for Wilmer, but I would guess it is similar) you will be rotating with a lot of quailfied applicants and it is hard to impress attendings with your limited knowledge of optho. Let's face it, attendings will ALWAYS be able to ask you questions that you can't answer. For the smaller programs, like the ones you are asking about, I'm not sure...you'll just have to ask people who have been there before you.
I am giving you advice as someone who didn't have the best board scores, didn't honor everything, and was not AOA, but I did hit the ground running when I started my optho rotations with regards to learning how to refract and applinate and use the indirect and learning as much as I could and this attitude worked for me. I figured that if I was "deficient" in one part of my application, I had to make up for it in other ways. JR has his own sytem that worked for him (very well, might I add, he matched at Wilmer, correct?) and everyone else who has been through this crazy process before will give you advice based on their own experiences. You'll take to heart a little advice from all of us and develop your own system.

If you're confused, you're not alone. I think we all struggled with the same issue re: whether to do a rotation or not. The key is to keep on talking to people (that's why I think this forum is awesome, I wish I had known about it earlier), especially the ones who got into the programs that you really want to go to and see how they did things...and sometimes the only way to do that is to do a rotation at that program.

Good luck!
Ruben

 

[JR]

Well stated!

 

[monkey7247]

Thanks for all the input. I decided to do 2 month-long externships, and was able to lock in my schedule today. I appreciate all the help. 👍