FDA Rotation 2014!
Started by sspharmD
Why do people actually want to do these rotations and waste their summers?
Oh Nice! I'm headed there Feb-March! I was so excited when I got the call-was getting a little nervous. I heard they had a lot of applicants this year. Let me know how yours goes!!
Cuz we have to? Duh?
Since when are FDA rotations mandated? I thought the only APPE rotations you need to do are your Community, Institutional, Internal Med, and Amb Care and a few electives. Why waste your time with a bs FDA rotation?
Same thing with the people applying for the John Hopkins rotations. To me, these don't seem to make the applicant seem anymore special than any other person applying for a job.
My FDA rotation came up quite a few times during residency interviews.
I found it useful- and the networking was great.
I never even got a call haha, and I heard back so late that I had already given up. I'm assuming it's just up to the specific preceptor on how they wish to contact their students. I'll definitely update! Hopefully there will be some sort of FB group or something by then too 🙂 Which division are you headed to?
Sometimes people do things even though they are not required. & the definition of a wasted summer is pretty subjective.
Congrats to everyone accepted! I will be at FDA from beginning of November to mid-December. PM if you are interested in rooming! 🙂
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Once you're done with pharmacy school, there is no more summer vacation. No more hanging out by the beach all day every day. Might wanna keep that in mind before signing up for some internship where you will have to work your ass off.
It's not an internship. It's an elective rotation.
Six weeks in DC with a guaranteed 9-5 rotation , no weekends, and snow days?? Heck yes 🙂
Wait, so it's unpaid?????
Aren't all rotations unpaid?
Yeah, rotations are unpaid. But y'all are applying for a rotation? I thought this was at least a paid internship.
There is an application process and it's pretty competitive.
Weird....
Thanks for your concern. Regardless of whether or not I had applied for this rotation, I would not have had a summer either way. So in my case, I'm glad that if I have to be on rotations for the majority of the upcoming academic year, then might as well be at a site that I find interesting. Besides, I hear DC is a pretty awesome city 🙂
I'm guessing you were there during last year's blizzard season? I'm thinking the chance for a snow day in July is probably not going to happen for me haha. Hope your experience there was amazing nonetheless!
Amazing experience. Polar vortex and walking through a foot of snow, not so much. Definitely exciting though. I stayed in an awesome part of town.
Which area did you end up staying/would you recommend? I don't think I'll be taking my car so my idea was just to find the closest/most affordable apt to silver spring. I checked a few past threads with people finding places through airbnb but some of the prices were overwhelming! 😱
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I used air bnb and stayed in Columbia heights- took the bus directly to fda. It was on the pricey side but so worth it because of such easy access to downtown DC. Some of the students i talked to said there wasn't much to do out in the suburbs.
Doing the FDA rotation was one of the best decision I've made. It came up on so many interviews and people were genuinely impressed and wanted to hear my experience. Plus now I can speak more on the regulatory side of pharmacy since I got to be a part of the drug application process, I was there in the meeting for the approval of the first oral MS medication. I also lucked out and had two precpetors one who deal with the drug approval process and the other with the safety phase IV process. Neat stuff
That's definitely great to know - I figure if you're only there for a few weeks, might as well take advantage of the city 🙂
I'm SO glad to hear you say that! I was actually really worried because I do want to apply to residencies eventually and I thought they might frown about the rotation not really being "clinical".
Just curious but did you stay with your preceptor the entire time? Or are you somewhat independent? & how easy was it to meet other students?
Aweee so glad to hear this!! I have a rotation with The Office of Regulatory Policy!!
Do I go to pharmacy school? Nope, I graduated 2 years ago.
I'm officially scared of the people they are letting become pharmacists these days.
What's that supposed to mean? Pharmacists are supposed to be workaholics?
Yes and you're never supposed to retire just die behind the bench.
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I swear, almost all the pharmacists I've met have been some of the most boring people ever. I told them I went skydiving and plan on taking courses to become a professional skydiver and they freaked out saying that they would never, it's insane, etc.
The chances of dying when skydiving is like 1/100,000.
I knew two people that died skydiving.
Meh, it's more actively done in your part of the country. Even if I die, I'm pretty sure it would be an amazing way to go.
What about base jumping?
I'd love to try it once I'm experienced at skydiving. Only thing I'm worried about with BASE jumping is getting zoned in to a sense of awe by the experience and forgetting to deploy the parachute in time. Skydiving you can freefall for a good minute or two, BASE jumping is a matter of seconds.
That said the guys who jumped off the Freedom Tower in NYC are awesome, I'm annoyed with how the city is prosecuting them.
