How many elective weeks are enough....?

Started by Bill_Brasky
Get help with your application

Use all the free resources available to you from SDN: articles, guides, expert advising, forums discussions, and school research.

Browse articles Compare schools My application plan Read Interview Feedback
Practice for interviews Ask an Advisor
Bill_Brasky

Bill_Brasky

To Bill Brasky!!!
15+ Year Member
As a first year we started getting educated on what our clinical years will be like in third and fourth years. I was surprised that during our third year we only get 4 weeks of electives, and our fourth year we only get 12 weeks. What is the average, and do you think that is enough time? I have no idea what I want to do in medicine (although it is early yet) and since I think most rotations are around four weeks (?) I would only have 3 rotations to check out thinks like Rads, Neuro, Path, etc! What do y'all think, am I worried about nothing?

-Bill Brasky
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
This link will cause BRAIN DAMAGE!!!! : http://cakerdeath.blogspot.com/2006/04/train-wreck-with-melody-that-haunts.html
 
Bill_Brasky said:
As a first year we started getting educated on what our clinical years will be like in third and fourth years. I was surprised that during our third year we only get 4 weeks of electives, and our fourth year we only get 12 weeks. What is the average, and do you think that is enough time? I have no idea what I want to do in medicine (although it is early yet) and since I think most rotations are around four weeks (?) I would only have 3 rotations to check out thinks like Rads, Neuro, Path, etc! What do y'all think, am I worried about nothing?

-Bill Brasky
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
This link will cause BRAIN DAMAGE!!!! : http://cakerdeath.blogspot.com/2006/04/train-wreck-with-melody-that-haunts.html
Click to expand...

That is ridiculous. What school do you go to?

I have 3 months of electives in 3rd year (Radiology, Anesthesiology, and Cardiology) and 5 months of electives in 4th year (2 months EM, Pediatric EM, Trauma Surgery, and ICU).

I actually have another free month, but we have a mandatory vacation month.

At our school, all rotations must be 4 weeks, except for 1 month, where we can do 2 rotations at 2 weeks each.
 
Bill_Brasky said:
Hey OSUDoc hope you are doing well, at WVSOM....(OSU didn't take me off the wait-list, but they only took like 4 out of state)

Maybe there is something I am missing???

http://www.wvsom.edu/ClinEd/year3description.htm

http://www.wvsom.edu/ClinEd/year4description.htm (this should say 12 weeks for electives)

😡 :scared:


-Bill Brasky
Click to expand...

Hey Bill,

I'm doing very well, since I end my 2nd year tomorrow. Thanks.

There are actually 12 out-of-state students in the MS-I class this year. They typically take 8-12 students from out-of-state per year.

It looks like you have 2 months of mandatory time off in the 3rd year and 2 months in the 4th year. Thats 4 months of time taken away from electives. It also looks like you are repeating all of your core curriculum. You do several more months of IM, Surgery, and even Peds than we do. We actually are only allowed 2 total months of time off, and I'm only taking advantage of 1 of those months.

One positive is that you can possibly do a specialty for a required rotation. For example, you could do Cardiology as a required IM rotation at the same hospital. I am doing Sports Medicine in place of one of my required family rotation.

Good luck!
 
OSUdoc08 said:
Hey Bill,

I'm doing very well, since I end my 2nd year tomorrow. Thanks.

There are actually 12 out-of-state students in the MS-I class this year. They typically take 8-12 students from out-of-state per year.

It looks like you have 2 months of mandatory time off in the 3rd year and 2 months in the 4th year. Thats 4 months of time taken away from electives. It also looks like you are repeating all of your core curriculum. You do several more months of IM, Surgery, and even Peds than we do. We actually are only allowed 2 total months of time off, and I'm only taking advantage of 1 of those months.

One positive is that you can possibly do a specialty for a required rotation. For example, you could do Cardiology as a required IM rotation at the same hospital. I am doing Sports Medicine in place of one of my required family rotation.

Good luck!
Click to expand...


Ah, I meant that they had 4 available out of state spots when I applied. I am freaking out, I think I'm going to talk to the clinical ed people tomorrow. I mean, don't residency directors usually require three letters of rec? I don't see how there is time to get three if you were doing Neuro, Rads, Optho, Derm, or Gas unless you used ALL three electives your senior year excluding the measly four weeks we get junior year and your vacation. Even better is the fact that looking at the handout we got today our junior schedule adds up to 53 weeks total!!!! We have 20(!!!!) total weeks of Family Medicine!!! Almost 25% of our total clincal education!

What if you have a bad teacher in one rotation and have a bad experience, that is almost your entire exposure to one of the aforemention specialities down the drain. 😡

-Bill 😡 Brasky
 
Don't freak out. It's going to be okay. One of the things you'll realize is that during your core rotations you will get exposed to a lot of the specialties you're mentioning (rads, neuro, anesthesia, derm). You will decide if you like to hang out in the OR (if not prob don't want gas). You will decide if you want to see patients (if so, prob no rads/path). You will also be exposed to things during your first two years. Definitely path. If you're still worried, spend some time during those two years shadowing docs in fields that you might be interested in but have no idea what exactly they do day to day. That also might narrow things down for you.

At my school we have six-week rotations in the third year and four-week rotations in the fourth year. We have a "surgical subspecialty" block where we have to take two different subspecialties and can choose from gas, urology, optho, neurosurg, ENT. Then we have four four-week electives. ER is required (it often is, check the curriculium at your school), as is neuro. A "basic science" is required which path fulfills. And we have two months of vacation, but if you want you can take extra rotations during that time. I felt that I was able to try everything I was still interested in trying by the time I got to fourth year and take electives in my residency field (and I've been done with school since late March).

I know that some schools really pound the family practice (sounds like yours might be one of them). Just use that time to 1. see if you like primary care and 2. learn about the other fields you will be exposed to during that time. That should also help you narrow things down. In general medical students aren't given much time to pick a field. But you gotta make the best of it and since you are thinking so far in advance you have a chance to spend some time really researching the different fields before you even get to clinicals. Congrats on starting this process!
 
Wednesday said:
Don't freak out. It's going to be okay. One of the things you'll realize is that during your core rotations you will get exposed to a lot of the specialties you're mentioning (rads, neuro, anesthesia, derm). You will decide if you like to hang out in the OR (if not prob don't want gas). You will decide if you want to see patients (if so, prob no rads/path). You will also be exposed to things during your first two years. Definitely path. If you're still worried, spend some time during those two years shadowing docs in fields that you might be interested in but have no idea what exactly they do day to day. That also might narrow things down for you.

At my school we have six-week rotations in the third year and four-week rotations in the fourth year. We have a "surgical subspecialty" block where we have to take two different subspecialties and can choose from gas, urology, optho, neurosurg, ENT. Then we have four four-week electives. ER is required (it often is, check the curriculium at your school), as is neuro. A "basic science" is required which path fulfills. And we have two months of vacation, but if you want you can take extra rotations during that time. I felt that I was able to try everything I was still interested in trying by the time I got to fourth year and take electives in my residency field (and I've been done with school since late March).

I know that some schools really pound the family practice (sounds like yours might be one of them). Just use that time to 1. see if you like primary care and 2. learn about the other fields you will be exposed to during that time. That should also help you narrow things down. In general medical students aren't given much time to pick a field. But you gotta make the best of it and since you are thinking so far in advance you have a chance to spend some time really researching the different fields before you even get to clinicals. Congrats on starting this process!
Click to expand...

Talked to the clinical education department today and learned that some of those slots they have for our senior year are examples of general medicine slots, and I have alot more freedom than I at first thought, plus I might be ableto negotiate with them if I find my career choice and am 100% set on it if I need more experience in one area or another. WVSOM once again rocks my socks.

-Bill Brasky
 
We only have 16 weeks of electives at my school as well. But we get to do one month of sub-specialty during our internal medicine rotation and one week of sub-specialty during pediatrics. We also have 2 weeks of radiology, 1 week of derm, and 1 week of anesthesiology buit into our required rotations, so even though we only have 4 months of elective time, we are probably exposed to more stuff in our required rotations compared to many schools. We also have to do one month of surgery selective which can be anything from ophtho to plastics to SICU.
 
My school does not allow electives in third year so we cannot venture away from Medicine, Family, Ped, Surg, OB/Gyn, Neuro/Psych. Fourth year, begins in July for us, we have 20 weeks of electives and 16 weeks of "Selectives". Sucks not having any elective third years. My school pushes primary care and unfortunately if this is not what you want to do you are a little behind.
 
Bill_Brasky said:
As a first year we started getting educated on what our clinical years will be like in third and fourth years. I was surprised that during our third year we only get 4 weeks of electives, and our fourth year we only get 12 weeks. What is the average, and do you think that is enough time? I have no idea what I want to do in medicine (although it is early yet) and since I think most rotations are around four weeks (?) I would only have 3 rotations to check out thinks like Rads, Neuro, Path, etc! What do y'all think, am I worried about nothing?

-Bill Brasky
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
This link will cause BRAIN DAMAGE!!!! : http://cakerdeath.blogspot.com/2006/04/train-wreck-with-melody-that-haunts.html
Click to expand...

Be glad you get 4 weeks in 3rd year, we get zero. It sucks. It makes it very difficult if you want to go into anything except IM,peds, gen surg, OB, family or psych, esp. if what you want to do is early match.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.