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- Feb 5, 2011
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Because of a significant life event, I chose to to postpone taking Step 1 as I felt I could use some extra time to study. That resulted in postponing Psychiatry to be taken sometime during fourth year. My school administration has no way of guaranteeing when I will be able to take Psychiatry, only that I will.
This causes a problem with scheduling away electives as most require that all required clerkships be completed prior to applying. While my school does not have a residency program, I will do a home elective prior to my away rotations. This means that if I try to do the Psychiatry rotation prior to applying to residency, I will have to do two away rotations pretty late - like sometime between September and November. This seems to defeat a lot of the logic of away electives, especially obtaining a letter of recommendation.
1). If the psychiatry rotation is necessary to be able to apply to most away electives, does this somehow indicate that my application may be looked at unfavorably or incomplete by Radiation Oncology residency programs if I had not yet taken Psych by the time I apply?
2). Would doing away electives that late be problematic or place me at a disadvantage? The reason I ask this question is because I would have many more options of places to rotate if I were to take Psych first.
3). There are three places it seems like I could rotate within a little over an hour from where I live without taking Pysch. One is realistically way too competitive for me to have much of a chance at matching. The other two are in the same city. Would doing two aways in the same city be a bad idea?
I am leaning toward not dealing with the headache of my school and scheduling the home RadOnc and away electives first, and hopefully taking Pyschiatry right after that. Any advice or insight would be greatly appreciated.
This causes a problem with scheduling away electives as most require that all required clerkships be completed prior to applying. While my school does not have a residency program, I will do a home elective prior to my away rotations. This means that if I try to do the Psychiatry rotation prior to applying to residency, I will have to do two away rotations pretty late - like sometime between September and November. This seems to defeat a lot of the logic of away electives, especially obtaining a letter of recommendation.
1). If the psychiatry rotation is necessary to be able to apply to most away electives, does this somehow indicate that my application may be looked at unfavorably or incomplete by Radiation Oncology residency programs if I had not yet taken Psych by the time I apply?
2). Would doing away electives that late be problematic or place me at a disadvantage? The reason I ask this question is because I would have many more options of places to rotate if I were to take Psych first.
3). There are three places it seems like I could rotate within a little over an hour from where I live without taking Pysch. One is realistically way too competitive for me to have much of a chance at matching. The other two are in the same city. Would doing two aways in the same city be a bad idea?
I am leaning toward not dealing with the headache of my school and scheduling the home RadOnc and away electives first, and hopefully taking Pyschiatry right after that. Any advice or insight would be greatly appreciated.
