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Hi all.
I’m a first year in a shortened curriculum and want some advice on selecting my rotations.
A little about me:
I’m a first year student. I have been a bit below average in all of my courses so far. I have been passing them without issue, but my performance has just been so/so across the board. I am a little bit anxious about step 1. Our exams are all NBME based and I would say I average around 70/75% accuracy across all of the NBME exams we’ve taken as finals, which would again correlate to a mediocre, but not great step 1 score. I am fortunate in that I want to attend a rural pediatrics residency. I know this isn’t a common aspiration, but I am from a small town and honestly cant see myself staying in a city after school. I like the community/ small town vibe that I grew up with and can’t stand city noise/ pollution/ the impersonal nature of a lot of city life and medical practice. I am committed to doing peds. I grew up the oldest of over 20 cousins and have been around younger kids since i was 2 years old. Ive been around them my whole life and learned to love them. Yes, I know peds is sad, but I have been around sick kids, disabled kids and kids in hard family situations a lot through shadowing working and volunteering so I know that I belong working with children. They are a constant source of joy. Even at family funerals or memorials the only time I smiled in over a week was interacting with my 4 year old cousin. My only considerations at this point are if I should go into a peds speciality (I like neuro, psych, and general peds at the moment) or specialize in one age group (I like the idea of OBGYN or NICU because I adore babies, but also have done a lot of work with adolescents and absolutely adore that age group, and I feel they are often overlooked). I’m sure that I’l be with kids in some capacity.
In terms of rotations. We start in March of second year (10 months from now) we have to make selections of our top 3 choice this month and they University assigns us to one of our top 3 “tracks”.
For me personally: I dont like surgery. I would skip this rotation if I could, but it’s obviously required. The thought of cutting into another human being terrifies me. I’m not a huge fan of blood and I’m petrified I will do something wrong and permanently damage the patient’s body. I know that people say this is a normal fear and I will get over it but this is not a normal fear, I have literally been dreading that rotation since High School when I decided I wanted to be a doctor. One of my friends advised me to do it first because it will get me over my fear, but I’m also a little wary of doing that because that’s one of the hardest shelves and my academic performance has not been on point. Any feedback on this thought appreciated. But genuinely, if someone predicts on here that I will be a surgeon and that end up being correct, i will give them actual money. Because I’m that sure its not gonna happen!!
We are required to do Peds and OBGYN rotations. I want to do them early because I will almost definitely use those letters for residency applications and will probably do those rotations a second time as “away” or “audition” rotation closer to the time of my residency applications. I dont want to do them first however, because I’m a little worried that my first rotation won’t be my best because I wont be quite sure what to do in the clinic and will get tripped up during the pimping.
Anyway, we’ve been given a few options of tracks to select so I’d like some advice on which to choose. Basically they can go in almost any order but you are committed to a sequence from early on. And we track with the same peers the entire time. I intend to NOT ask peers where they are tracking to make the best choice for me without friends influencing it. I love my peers and our relationship and some have become close friends, but I won’t be the social type on the wards with other students. I hate sitting around at work socializing because I just end up feeling bad Iike I should be doing something, and will be way more inclined to chat with a resident a physican or to ask for a task to do so I’m very unconcerned about the social aspect.
I believe I have given all of the relevant info but don’t be shy about asking questions and offering feedback on some or all of this.
We have not been told which tracks use which hospitals yet, so I can’t base it around that at all.
Things I need to fit in during a little less than a 1 year span (before Step 2 dedicated)
Surgery (8)
OBGYN (4)
Peds (4)
psych (4)
Medicine/ IM (8)
Women and Children’s Health (4)
Elective (4)
We get a lot more electives later.
My school is a little strange with scheduling so we will typically take 2 shelf exams at the same time during weeks between rotations which occur very 12ish weeks. We all come back to campus to do exams and reflection weeks together during those times.
Electives I KNOW I want to do
Peds (audition/ repeat)
Neuro (preferably peds would do adults as well)
Emergency (think I will learn a lot about a lot of fields)
In patient Pediatrics/ Hospitalist
Other elective I’d consider
GI
Cardio
I’m a first year in a shortened curriculum and want some advice on selecting my rotations.
A little about me:
I’m a first year student. I have been a bit below average in all of my courses so far. I have been passing them without issue, but my performance has just been so/so across the board. I am a little bit anxious about step 1. Our exams are all NBME based and I would say I average around 70/75% accuracy across all of the NBME exams we’ve taken as finals, which would again correlate to a mediocre, but not great step 1 score. I am fortunate in that I want to attend a rural pediatrics residency. I know this isn’t a common aspiration, but I am from a small town and honestly cant see myself staying in a city after school. I like the community/ small town vibe that I grew up with and can’t stand city noise/ pollution/ the impersonal nature of a lot of city life and medical practice. I am committed to doing peds. I grew up the oldest of over 20 cousins and have been around younger kids since i was 2 years old. Ive been around them my whole life and learned to love them. Yes, I know peds is sad, but I have been around sick kids, disabled kids and kids in hard family situations a lot through shadowing working and volunteering so I know that I belong working with children. They are a constant source of joy. Even at family funerals or memorials the only time I smiled in over a week was interacting with my 4 year old cousin. My only considerations at this point are if I should go into a peds speciality (I like neuro, psych, and general peds at the moment) or specialize in one age group (I like the idea of OBGYN or NICU because I adore babies, but also have done a lot of work with adolescents and absolutely adore that age group, and I feel they are often overlooked). I’m sure that I’l be with kids in some capacity.
In terms of rotations. We start in March of second year (10 months from now) we have to make selections of our top 3 choice this month and they University assigns us to one of our top 3 “tracks”.
For me personally: I dont like surgery. I would skip this rotation if I could, but it’s obviously required. The thought of cutting into another human being terrifies me. I’m not a huge fan of blood and I’m petrified I will do something wrong and permanently damage the patient’s body. I know that people say this is a normal fear and I will get over it but this is not a normal fear, I have literally been dreading that rotation since High School when I decided I wanted to be a doctor. One of my friends advised me to do it first because it will get me over my fear, but I’m also a little wary of doing that because that’s one of the hardest shelves and my academic performance has not been on point. Any feedback on this thought appreciated. But genuinely, if someone predicts on here that I will be a surgeon and that end up being correct, i will give them actual money. Because I’m that sure its not gonna happen!!
We are required to do Peds and OBGYN rotations. I want to do them early because I will almost definitely use those letters for residency applications and will probably do those rotations a second time as “away” or “audition” rotation closer to the time of my residency applications. I dont want to do them first however, because I’m a little worried that my first rotation won’t be my best because I wont be quite sure what to do in the clinic and will get tripped up during the pimping.
Anyway, we’ve been given a few options of tracks to select so I’d like some advice on which to choose. Basically they can go in almost any order but you are committed to a sequence from early on. And we track with the same peers the entire time. I intend to NOT ask peers where they are tracking to make the best choice for me without friends influencing it. I love my peers and our relationship and some have become close friends, but I won’t be the social type on the wards with other students. I hate sitting around at work socializing because I just end up feeling bad Iike I should be doing something, and will be way more inclined to chat with a resident a physican or to ask for a task to do so I’m very unconcerned about the social aspect.
I believe I have given all of the relevant info but don’t be shy about asking questions and offering feedback on some or all of this.
We have not been told which tracks use which hospitals yet, so I can’t base it around that at all.
Things I need to fit in during a little less than a 1 year span (before Step 2 dedicated)
Surgery (8)
OBGYN (4)
Peds (4)
psych (4)
Medicine/ IM (8)
Women and Children’s Health (4)
Elective (4)
We get a lot more electives later.
My school is a little strange with scheduling so we will typically take 2 shelf exams at the same time during weeks between rotations which occur very 12ish weeks. We all come back to campus to do exams and reflection weeks together during those times.
Electives I KNOW I want to do
Peds (audition/ repeat)
Neuro (preferably peds would do adults as well)
Emergency (think I will learn a lot about a lot of fields)
In patient Pediatrics/ Hospitalist
Other elective I’d consider
GI
Cardio
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