How common is it for schools to send their students to far away rotation sites?

[TheRealBibFortuna]

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When I was applying to medical school, I saw the repeated advice to choose a school with home rotation sites and to avoid schools without them. I now attend a fairly well-respected school that apparently will have students commute multiple cities away for rotations. Is it common for a schools to not be able to accommodate all of their students at their main campus? I thought it was mainly newer or less reputable MD and DO schools that sent their students all over the place.

 

[AJS59]

When I was applying to medical school, I saw the repeated advice to choose a school with home rotation sites and to avoid schools without them. I now attend a fairly well-respected school that apparently will have students commute multiple cities away for rotations. Is it common for a schools to not be able to accommodate all of their students at their main campus? I thought it was mainly newer or less reputable MD and DO schools that sent their students all over the place.

It depends a lot on whether or not the school is affiliated with an academic hospital, and if so what the size of the hospital/ability to teach med students compares to the class size. I'm fairly lucky in that our system has a public hospital, private hospital and VA within walking distance of each other; however even we are not free of going away for some rotations (i.e. need to drive 1-1.5 hours for some people on peds and OB)

 

[TheRealBibFortuna]

It depends a lot on whether or not the school is affiliated with an academic hospital, and if so what the size of the hospital/ability to teach med students compares to the class size. I'm fairly lucky in that our system has a public hospital, private hospital and VA within walking distance of each other; however even we are not free of going away for some rotations (i.e. need to drive 1-1.5 hours for some people on peds and OB)

Pretty much same exact story here. I just can’t understand how such a huge institution can struggle to place 100 students. Enough staff to have a cardiovascular dermatology wing but students on their peds rotation go to Timbuktu

 

[polymerization]

Pretty much same exact story here. I just can’t understand how such a huge institution can struggle to place 100 students. Enough staff to have a cardiovascular dermatology wing but students on their peds rotation go to Timbuktu

Geisel, is that you?

 

[Taddy Mason]

I trained at 2 large academic medical centers in Boston for residency and fellowship and their affiliated med schools both relied fairly heavily on community sites for clinical rotations despite being affiliated to major medical centers.

 

[Dral]

Yep. Went to a reputable school and they had us do surgery, internal med outpatient, and family med across the state. They provided housing at each site for everyone though.