Externship Rotations

[efs]

Getting ready for some travel. Third year is essentially over (except some paperwork). Fourth year rotations start in June. Looking forward to a change of pace.

My first few rotations are at Ohio State, Womack Army Medical Center at Fort Bragg, and Wahington Hospital Center in DC. Some of my classmates have chosen other interesting rotations including places like Cambridge, West Penn (Pittsburg) UT San Antonio, Grant Medical Center (Columbus), Scripps Hospital (San Diego), Yale, Detroit Medical Center, Presby/St. Luke's (Denver) to name a few. I think we are all looking at some good experiences.

For those of you out there who might know anything about these rotations, I would be interested in hearing your comments. I still have a few open months at the end of the year that I will arrange later. The more input the better.

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[Toejam]

Sounds like an interesting mix, Eric. Looks like you'll have some good experiences.

I did all of mine in CA except for Tucson, AZ. Where are you doing your core?

 

[efs]

Core will be in Des Moines, at Broadlawns which is a county hospital. Spent 2 months rotating there third year, so I have a good idea of what to expect. Should be a good experience.

 

[cg2a93]

Anybody know about Florida or Cali programs, I hear if your not from barry it is extremely hard to get a Florida program?

 

[efs]

A couple of my classmates are from Florida, and they have scheduled the majority of their rotations there. Both of them were planning to do their core rotation at the same hospital there. This program canceled the core program, saying they wanted to offer more students the opportunity to visit for month long rotations instead. They both had to find other cores. Other than that I don't think either of them had any trouble lining up rotations in Florida.

To clear things up a little, Fourth year rotations vary from school to school. At our school, you are allowed a lot of latitude as to how you set it up. We are required to do a 4 month "core" rotation at places that have this arranged with the school. This part is somewhat standardized among the programs. Each student will have certain specific experiences, which will generally be the same. We are also required to have one month in an "office based" rotation. This should provide some exposure to practice management issues. We are allowed to take one month off, but this is optional. For the remaining 6-7 months it is up to the student, but at least 6 months (including the core) must be in podiatry rotations, and no more than 6 months (including the core) at any one program.

Many students set up rotations with physicians outside of podiatry. Popular options are IM, radiology, vascular, dermatology, and anesthesia. Pretty easy to see how these might tie in to podiatry.

Typical strategies include scheduling early rotations with programs being considered for residency. Cores later in the year fall in with this. Office based rotations close to home around the holidays are popular. A lot of people schedule their off month for January - when residency interviews happen, or March - to study for boards.

Since we are allowed a good deal of freedom, each students schedule is quite different. Can also take into account what the students eventual goals are. Some people have several office based months. Others only the required one month. Some people have almost all hospital based rotations. Many include a number of non-podiatry rotations.

Lots of options. I think it's going to be an interesting year.

 

[cg2a93]

In New York We Only Have Three externships Experiences so You Have to Use them wisely. I have heard many rumors that it is very tough for New York students to get externships in California and Florida.
one of the weaknesses of the New York program is in my opinion that we don't have the same opportunities to extern as the other schools do. Although, we do get very good clinical exposure we don't get the opportunities to explore the same amount of possible residencies.