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externships a bad idea?
- Thread starter mullerian
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I matched at one the places I did an externship and was offered a prematch position at the other place I did an externship. So, I thought it was more than helpful. A program can learn a lot about you as well as you learn a lot about that program by rotating there. Plus, you can get strong LORs from their own department heads. Otherwise you just become another pile papers with such and such board score like everyone else who is unknown to that respective program.
I personally don't see the downside of doing an externship.
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Externships can help you or hurt you. If you are a hard working, easy to get along with person, the externship will most likely help. If you have weird quirks, are lazy, or, in general, piss people off, it could be the end of your chances at that program. Most people can pull off a charade with their personality for an interview day; few can pull it off for a month. If you are not a likeable person, it will be revealed. Not trying to be mean, just saying how it is.
That being said, a good externship rotation will rarely overcome big deficiencies in your application. People may really like you as a person but still not want to take a risk on you as a resident if they are worried that you will not cut the mustard academically.
That being said, a good externship rotation will rarely overcome big deficiencies in your application. People may really like you as a person but still not want to take a risk on you as a resident if they are worried that you will not cut the mustard academically.
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I did. I had a great externship and have been recommending the same rotation to students looking for a place to rotate ever since.
Assuming that you're a genuinely decent person, the big gamble with an externship which you're investigating to see whether you could work there, is whether there's "chemistry" between you and the workplace. How do you know whether you'll "gel" with the place? You don't, unfortunately. Even word of mouth ("____ is a nice place to work") can't predict whether you're a good match for each other. So there is some element of blind luck in this. You might invest time and money to try out a place and find you really don't want to work there. Or they might find you're not their type.
The good thing about anesthesia is that, unless you have a golf handicap (for example, if you are not a US MD student or you have a poor board score or poor grades), you will easily match without an externship. So you don't have to take that risk if you don't want to, although I think you risk losing nothing more than time and money (an away is rarely, if ever, detrimental to your application as a whole).
True, but it can overcome a large number of small deficiencies. 😉
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Please do not do these things on an externship if you want to match at that program:
1. Ask to go get breakfast while you are waiting five minutes for surgical consent to bring patient back to OR.
2. Ask for a similar "comfy" chair as the resident's to sit in during the case.
3. Talk trash about another program, then use cell phone in OR during a case to kiss butt with said program's secretary for an interview ("I really want to go to your program".)
4. Ask the resident questions as if you were pimping him/her.
5. Every other question you ask relates to how you can get into the program.
1. Ask to go get breakfast while you are waiting five minutes for surgical consent to bring patient back to OR.
2. Ask for a similar "comfy" chair as the resident's to sit in during the case.
3. Talk trash about another program, then use cell phone in OR during a case to kiss butt with said program's secretary for an interview ("I really want to go to your program".)
4. Ask the resident questions as if you were pimping him/her.
5. Every other question you ask relates to how you can get into the program.
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I did an externship at one of the institutions that has been mentioned frequently on this forum. My Step 1 score was below a 210 and I matched into that institution. I, of course, worked my ass off during the work day and studied afterward to prove I have the necessary work ethic and to demonstrate my anesthesia knowledge. To reiterate what others have posted, as long as you are a genuine person and are able to appropiately network your abilities and knowledge base, an externship should really only help. I know if I hadn't done it, I probably would not have even received an interview. In the end, I matched.
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I did 2 externships cause my school has no anesthesia program and I had some electives to kill. Maybe it was the programs I rotated at but I felt is was very hard to impress the attendings since they were never in the cases. They'd just be in there for the intubation then they'd leave and I'd chill w/the residents. The residents I worked with gave me great reviews and I even went out to the bars w/a few of em. I was able to secure a pretty good LOR from one which prolly helped me on the interview trail.
Results, well @ 1 program I didnt even get an interview. The other program gave me an interview I would have otherwise not gotten but unfortunatly I didn't match there. I'm a DO but otherwise have no other holes in my application. I ended up with plenty of interviews @ some respectable institutions and I matched just fine.
In the end I'd prolly do externship rotations again. More important than the actual place I rotated at was the experience I got. I got some really good exposure and got to see the insides of 2 different programs. I got to see what I really like and dislike in a program and it really showed when I interviewed at other institutions.
Results, well @ 1 program I didnt even get an interview. The other program gave me an interview I would have otherwise not gotten but unfortunatly I didn't match there. I'm a DO but otherwise have no other holes in my application. I ended up with plenty of interviews @ some respectable institutions and I matched just fine.
In the end I'd prolly do externship rotations again. More important than the actual place I rotated at was the experience I got. I got some really good exposure and got to see the insides of 2 different programs. I got to see what I really like and dislike in a program and it really showed when I interviewed at other institutions.
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Truth be told, I did an externship at Tulane in and around 1990 and it was a good thing I did because the experience made me definitely decide not to go there. Just out the door at Hawthorne Hall on Canal Street at 0500 met up with a big sweaty, shirtless black dude with I'll-kill-ya-eyes and a shiny knife in his hand. I gave him my prized LL Bean field watch and the bobo pocket calculator I had in my top pocket. I ran the short distance to Tulane Med Ctr(4.8 in the 40 yard dash in high school). Lucky for me he did not follow. I never saw him again. Lastly, a couple of weeks later in the fenced in parking lot, someone stole the entire front tire and rim on my PU truck and left a cinder block in its place. I've never been back since and gots no love for N'Awlins. That Nagin dude can have that 'hole. Regards, ---Zip
