Hospital that pushes you to limit VS gives you a lot of free time

[Roomowl]

I am about to choose clinical rotation sites but there are two mixed opinions on hospitals that I want to choose.
One hospital will push you to the limit. A lot of work and time dedication but you will learn a lot through patient experience.
Another hospital is a bit loose, gives you some good amount of free time to study for shelf exam and step 2, but not much real-life clinical experience compared to the first one.

Which kind of hospital is generally considered as good hospital to rotate?

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[Rapsidy]

It just depends on what you want out of that rotation imo. I already knew what I wanted to do going into medical school, so for that rotation specifically, I picked a site that I’m interested in residency and also has a balance of work and study time.

For the rotations that I know I absolutely have no interest in (surgery, OBGYN, neuro) I did my best to get more laid back/chill places to give me more study time since I’m going to struggle more anyways retaining info that I need.

You’re going to get worked to the bone as a resident, so IMO if given the choice overall I’d pick the places that allow more free time especially if I know I’m not interested in that specialty.

 

[CrazyHorseLady]

It depends on what you want to get out of your education. I would say try to pick more laid back sites for specialties you cannot stand or don't see yourself liking. I am very greatful I got the most laidback surgery site for example because I hated everything about it. However, I knew I wanted to do IM, so I picked the hardest site for IM and learned a ton. I would say balance your schedule but don't do all of one thing: one way you will burn yourself out, the other way you won't learn as much as your peers.

 

[Redpancreas]

Sadly in the current environment, your best bet is the one that provides you the best clinical evaluations if that can be discerned. Ask around your cohort and don't be the one who goes to the tough hospital with good intentions only to hear after the fact from all your colleagues that the attendings are malignant and give everyone 3s at best.

In an ideal world, everyone would go to the tough site with an eagerness to learn and everyone would work with attendings who graded using a validated metric, but that never happens.

The current evaluation system is broken because it's been a back and forth between malignant attendings thinking they're doing good vs. entitled students complaining and it's come to a point where each evaluator evaluates based on their prior experience and cultural norms which vary across institutions. You may find some which frown on residents giving students anything less than 4/5 even if they just showed up whereas another institution may have people who give 3/5s to those who came in early and left late every day and dedicated their life to the rotation for the month.