Externships for interns?

[wolferman]

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I recently failed to match in ortho. I did match to a prelim year in medicine with my own program. My plan is to apply again to ortho programs over the next year. I'd like to do some audition rotations (externships) at other institutions with my electives, but at the programs I've investigated, they only want medical school seniors. As an intern, can I do an audition rotation somewhere?

 

[VincentAdultman]

I recently failed to match in ortho. I did match to a prelim year in medicine with my own program. My plan is to apply again to ortho programs over the next year. I'd like to do some audition rotations (externships) at other institutions with my electives, but at the programs I've investigated, they only want medical school seniors. As an intern, can I do an audition rotation somewhere?

First of all, I'm baffled that you decided to go the MEDICINE prelim route.

To answer your question, no you can't do away rotations as an intern. That's part of the reason why it's that's much harder to match as a prelim. You're an intern at that institution. You have specific obligations at that institution as stated in your contract. Maybe I'm wrong, but I've never heard of an intern doing AI's like an MS4.

And why the !@#% would you do a MEDICINE prelim? You pretty much killed any chance of filling the RRC requirements for an ortho internship, thereby eliminating any chance of accepting a PGY2 ortho spot.

Seriously, did you talk to ANYONE before making that decision?

Good luck?

 

[Tired]

And why the !@#% would you do a MEDICINE prelim? You pretty much killed any chance of filling the RRC requirements for an ortho internship, thereby eliminating any chance of accepting a PGY2 ortho spot.

Really, what did he think would happen? Put "medicine" on a diploma and you're pretty guaranteed that your app will be filling trashcans all across the country.

Best idea: Go back and try to match into an Ortho intern slot.

 

[bones4u]

Or do a year of ortho research, or atleast something surgically related.

 

[wolferman]

So far I've been told that I should contact the orthopaedics programs directly rather than the medical school externship programs. The director of my medicine internship has given me the okay to use all three of my elective months to do surgery away rotations in orthopaedics if I want. FYI, he told me this prior to me ranking his program, which is why I decided I'd risk a year in medicine, i.e. I knew I'd be able to do some ortho rotations.

As for meeting the RRC requirements, I do plan to do a surgery internship. At no point was I under the delusion that a medicine internship would fulfill the requirements for an orthopaedics residency. I plan to apply again for categorical ortho residencies, not PGY2 positions.

What I'm now curious about is why those that have responded think that a year of medicine will somehow make me a worse applicant than I was this year. I have many friends that expanded their fourth year because they aren't sure what they are going into. As far as I'm concerned, doing a year of medicine is like I'm expanding, except that I'm getting paid and having more responsibility and patient care experience. My desire to pursue orthopaedics hasn't changed. Won't having an internship, even one in medicine, be somewhat of an asset rather than a liability? After all, I'll be the one orthopod that knows more than two antibiotics and can read an EKG. 😉

 

[Wahoos]

Hey Wolferman, I actually think that doing a year in medicine as a pre lim is a very smart idea. This will seperate you out from the other people applying next year that did an general surgery pre lim year. On your interviews, you can always say the reason you did an year in medicine is so that you can better take care of the ortho patients in terms of their medical issues, plus you will do one year in gen surg when you match, so you are not loosing anything. Also if your medicine PD agreed to let you do 3 away rotations in ortho as a med pre lim, that is great, because if you were to do a gen surg prelim, you will be lucky to find coverage for the days that you have interviews. I assume that you graduated from University of Washington medical school, that is definitely a plus. You also need to look at your board score and the rest of your app to be realistic about if you will be able to match in ortho the 2nd time around. Also be smart about where you rotate, look at the places that places heavy weight on the rotation and have fewer rotators. If you rotate at a place that have 50 rotators per year, you will just end up as someone doing the scut work for the residents and not stand out. I am in a solid academic program on the east coast, if you are interested in coming out this way, I can PM you our program coordinator's info to set up an rotation.
Good luck.

 

[VincentAdultman]

Hey Wolferman, I actually think that doing a year in medicine as a pre lim is a very smart idea. This will seperate you out from the other people applying next year that did an general surgery pre lim year. On your interviews, you can always say the reason you did an year in medicine is so that you can better take care of the ortho patients in terms of their medical issues, plus you will do one year in gen surg when you match, so you are not loosing anything. Also if your medicine PD agreed to let you do 3 away rotations in ortho as a med pre lim, that is great, because if you were to do a gen surg prelim, you will be lucky to find coverage for the days that you have interviews. I assume that you graduated from University of Washington medical school, that is definitely a plus. You also need to look at your board score and the rest of your app to be realistic about if you will be able to match in ortho the 2nd time around. Also be smart about where you rotate, look at the places that places heavy weight on the rotation and have fewer rotators. If you rotate at a place that have 50 rotators per year, you will just end up as someone doing the scut work for the residents and not stand out. I am in a solid academic program on the east coast, if you are interested in coming out this way, I can PM you our program coordinator's info to set up an rotation.
Good luck.

The question is, even if your program lets you do away rotations, will ortho programs accept an intern as a rotator?

 

[wolferman]

I found a couple programs that allowed me to rotate as an intern. One of them worked schedule-wise with my internship schedule. The rotation went well. In the meantime, I finished up my medicine internship while reapplying to ortho. I'm happy to announce that I did successfully match to an orthopaedics residency this year. As I am about to start my surgical internship, I can safely say that I think the year of medicine will benefit me in the long run. Learning how to handle medicine patients will make surgical patients quite a bit easier to manage. So to Pompacil and Tired, I'd just like to say that maybe giving out advice isn't your strong suit. ;-)

 

[VincentAdultman]

I found a couple programs that allowed me to rotate as an intern. One of them worked schedule-wise with my internship schedule. The rotation went well. In the meantime, I finished up my medicine internship while reapplying to ortho. I'm happy to announce that I did successfully match to an orthopaedics residency this year. As I am about to start my surgical internship, I can safely say that I think the year of medicine will benefit me in the long run. Learning how to handle medicine patients will make surgical patients quite a bit easier to manage. So to Pompacil and Tired, I'd just like to say that maybe giving out advice isn't your strong suit. ;-)

Congrats on matching into ortho. I was in your position in '07 (granted I took a more conventional approach) and I know what it's like to go from not matching to having an uncertain future and questioning your desire to ultimately acheiving that goal. Welcome aboard.

Still not sure I would reccommend your path to most others, however.

 

[ddmo]

Just remember that when you are taking care of surgical patients, fluid is your friend, not your enemy.