Help with 4th year spring electives!

[Pinner Doc]

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Hey all,

I need two electives for March and April. (And I will already have done radiology and all my EM electives).

Should I do something that actually would be useful to me as an EM resident in the future, such as trauma surgery? (Even though it might kick my butt?)

Should I do something interesting that I will probably never get to do again? (Like child psych or something along that vein?)

Or should I just pick the easiest elective out there and enjoy my spring? (Hellooooooo ethics committee!)😉

In all seriousness, though....

 

[Dr. Will]

Hey all,

I need two electives for March and April. (And I will already have done radiology and all my EM electives).

Should I do something that actually would be useful to me as an EM resident in the future, such as trauma surgery? (Even though it might kick my butt?)

Should I do something interesting that I will probably never get to do again? (Like child psych or something along that vein?)

Or should I just pick the easiest elective out there and enjoy my spring? (Hellooooooo ethics committee!)😉

In all seriousness, though....

Do something easy. Do you really want to be doing trauma surg (which you will get plenty of in EM) in March leading up into match and in april when everyone is partying still, post match? This is in easy answer. 4th year is great b/c you can make it chill...and honestly no one gives a crap what you do after feb when the rankings are in. You will be in for a real shock when you start in July b/c nothing like 4th year ever presents itself again.

 

[ditch doctor]

Dude, pick something easy AND that helps EM: ANESTHESIA!

Go tube people from 7am-noon, then go play 18 holes in the afternoon everyday. Weekends off, no call, easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy...

 

[kalico]

Anesthesia or radiology.

 

[BadVB750]

Agree with something easy, I wish I would have done a rotation in the medical examiners office.

Enjoy life before you become a note monkey, order writer, discharge planer, pt/ot chaser downer, rectal performing intern with no life. Sorry, trauma Q3 is starting to get to me.

 

[missmod]

I think they probably won't work you as hard either since it will be April and if you tell them you're not going into whatever field it is. I always thought autopsy pathology would be cool to do.

 

[breaker1919]

I've got my fourth year extremely busy in the fall and extremely lazy in the spring. I couldn't imagine doing a sub-I or trauma or something in April. I'm having a hard time being motivated in October!

 

[Hawkeye Kid]

agree with ditch that gas is a pretty good end-of-M4 rotation. it's not hard, you'll get some good skills, etc. i did it at a community hospital--just me and attendings. it wasn't uncommon to have 3 tubes by 8am. it also wasn't uncommon to be home by noon. not too shabby.

also, your idea of ethics committee might not be bad, either, especially if it's not loaded down with liberal arts/psychsocial readings and you actually get to be involved in ethics committee discussions. that would be a nice experience to have going into intern year.

whatever you do, though, don't do something hard--and definitely not something hard that you'll do again in residency.