How many rotations during medical schoo;?

[Dharma]

I know it's a bit early in the game as an M2, but I'm curious as to how many and what types of rotations in psychiatry are considered optimal for someone looking to show interest, but most importantly, develop a decent foundation (in a medical student sense) in the field.

I understand that balance is key and other fields should not be neglected (since the first goal is to become a good physician) but what is a good balance in terms of psych? 3 rotations? 4? And should they include a mix of inpatient, outpatient, emergency psych, etc? Any fields outside of psych that would prove most beneficial? (I'm sure this varies with interest).

Just trying to get a gauge of the legwork I need to put forth in regards to planning an acceptable schedule in the next couple of years. What do you guys think?

Thanks.
-d

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[mass1]

I think it depends on how your psychiatry clerkship goes. When I did it, our 6 weeks was divided into 2 weeks outpatient, 2 weeks inpatient, and 2 weeks C/L, so that gave me a taste of what psychiatry can offer. Then as a 4th year student, I did just one addiction psych elective and one C/L elective, and I spent the rest of my time doing things I would likely never do again such as GI, cardio, med sub-I, family med, neuro, ER.

Now as a resident, I found this approach to be helpful as I have a solid foundation in other aspects of medicine (which was useful during medicine months as an intern), and I have the rest of my life to hone my skills as a psychiatrist.

 

[MacDonaldTriad]

I recommend doing as much psych as you need to do to be sure it is what you want to do. You will do plenty of psych training in training. Don’t waste your last chance to do other things by trying to get only a little ahead on a very long road.

 

[Dharma]

Thanks for the advice everyone. Much appreciated. As of now, leaning towards 3 rotations. But again, time (amongst other factors) will tell.

 

[Nasrudin]

Thanks for the advice everyone. Much appreciated. As of now, leaning towards 3 rotations. But again, time (amongst other factors) will tell.

I'd agree with the attending poster above. Also there are your personal considerations that include how your clinical rotations are structured and when you will finish 3rd year and so on. A lot of schools are moving to a curriculum model that moves to rotations earlier and a lot of applicants have time to finish electives and study for the step 2's before applying. Another possibility is how bad to you want to do audition rotations either to try to get an interview or to try to evaluate a potential program for yourself.

My school finishes 3rd year pretty late. I wanted to prepare for my steps and have some space with lighter rotation to interview. My school also requires surgery and medicine sub-i's and a primary care elective.

So I had time to pick one psych elective and then prepare for the tests while working on a forensics project. I used my psych electives to see how important it was for me that the programs I would rank had addiction and/or forensic fellowships. The rest of the year will be me trying to get ready for internship and a light neurology elective for me to use to either get into top physical condition or study of step 3--I'm thinking of taking it early unless I match at a program that pays for it.

I haven't gone on interviews yet but it seems many programs are structured with general medicine and neurology for the first 6 months or so. So I'm planning on preparing for that given the rest of my career will be devoted to honing my psychiatry skills and knowledge.

I suspect that my future psych cohort will have a wide variety of preparedness for psych but that we will graduate the program more or less in the same boat and be as good as our work ethic will have taken us. But that's in a galaxy far, far away.

 

[shan564]

I recommend doing as much psych as you need to do to be sure it is what you want to do. You will do plenty of psych training in training. Don’t waste your last chance to do other things by trying to get only a little ahead on a very long road.

I agree with this, and with everybody who said "3 months." 3 months was exactly the amount that I needed to be sure that I love psychiatry, to have enough experience so that I was prepared for internship, and to have enough time left over so that I could explore the other fields enough to learn about them adequately and to rule them out as potential career choices.