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How do Rotations affect Residency?
Started by luckymed
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Clinical rotations in med school affect your residency match in 3 main ways:
1. Probably the most important is your grade on your third year rotations. If you want to do a surgery, no matter where you want to go, it will help to have an Honors in surgery and good comments from residents and attendings (a few schools have P/F clinicals, but most have at least an Honors). No matter what you want to do, honors in Medicine, Surgery, and your specialty of choice are big positives on your application.
2. On factor that is often overlooked is that your experience on a rotation can often affect your choice of specialty. If you have a hellish time on a rotation and don't get along with the residents or staff, this can change your mind about a specialty. This is unfortunate, but it happens all the time.
3. Away rotations in early fourth year at a program where you plan on applying can increase your chance if they really like you. This depends on specialty (I've heard Ortho puts a big emphasis on this). Also, if you already have a great overall application, anything less than stellar work may actually hurt your application.
Hope I answered your questin. Good luck.
1. Probably the most important is your grade on your third year rotations. If you want to do a surgery, no matter where you want to go, it will help to have an Honors in surgery and good comments from residents and attendings (a few schools have P/F clinicals, but most have at least an Honors). No matter what you want to do, honors in Medicine, Surgery, and your specialty of choice are big positives on your application.
2. On factor that is often overlooked is that your experience on a rotation can often affect your choice of specialty. If you have a hellish time on a rotation and don't get along with the residents or staff, this can change your mind about a specialty. This is unfortunate, but it happens all the time.
3. Away rotations in early fourth year at a program where you plan on applying can increase your chance if they really like you. This depends on specialty (I've heard Ortho puts a big emphasis on this). Also, if you already have a great overall application, anything less than stellar work may actually hurt your application.
Hope I answered your questin. Good luck.
WBC is right - as a matter of fact, for some of the more competitive specialties, including Ortho, I have seen it REQUIRED that you do a visiting elective with them. Obviously some programs place an extremely high premium on seeing you in the flesh.
Two edged sword - if you do poorly or even just average, you will not likely be ranked highly.
Two edged sword - if you do poorly or even just average, you will not likely be ranked highly.
Maybe a stupid question, but are "away rotations" something that are competitive to get at your place of choice, or do you simply have to be interested in their program??
Depends on the elective and the location. Some electives at big name places are pretty competitive and hard to get, others simply are yours for the asking. No hard and fast rules on this one.
Some rotations at competitive sites are hard to get. Especially Sub-internship and ICU electives. Do yourself a favor and look into these early for next year. I would start looking approximately now if you are thinking about doing one in a highly demanded place.
