How many students are taken at each of these hospitals? (They'll often throw in the name of a respectable hospital to distract you, but not tell you that only one student/year rotates there.)
This one isn't a bad way to look at things, though just because there aren't a ton of students rotating through a place doesn't automatically mean that you can't learn there.
How many students will be assigned to a particular rotation? (30 students assigned to the same surgery rotation means you won't get to scrub in on cases.)
This one I can't argue with...
Is it a teaching hospital with supervision for students to assist with procedures? (if its not you'll never put in an IV, never assist with a central line placement, never do an ABG, never learn to suture a laceration. You'll stand there, watching, for two years b/c students aren't covered by hospital insurance policy.)
Some clarification on what a "teaching" hospital means is necessary here. I always thought of a teaching hospital as one that has residents. But if all that's required for a place to be a teaching hospital is the teaching of procedures etc. then most every hospital out there that has medical students in it is a teaching hospital.
Additionally, there are teaching hospitals (by my definition) out there that don't teach students to do procedures, in fact, in many cases you have less of a chance to do procedures because you're at best 3rd or 4th in line (after the attending, resident, and intern).
How many times will you have to move 3rd and 4th years? (If you have to move every 3 months from upstate to downstate to Michigan to get all your required rotations in, you'll be so displaced it will be nearly impossible to focus on learning.)
Are there really schools that require people to move multiple times during clinical years? I can see some regional travel being necessary depending on location, but moving? as in from state to state?
Will my rotations be inpatient? (An OG/GYN "rotation" at an outpatient clinic means you'll never see a delivery, let alone assist with one. A Medicine rotation at an outpatient clinic means you'll never do an admission, never work-up a patient for MI or Stroke or Afib or GI bleed, or anything else.)
This one is a little off. First off you will (or at least you should) have chances to work people up for A-Fib, GI bleed, etc at outpatient medicine rotations. You may even see someone come in with an MI, at least I have. You may not see them through to the end of their care for the issue, but you'll have the opportunity to be the person who figures out what's going on. For example, I've already been involved in diagnosing Cancers, CHF, FSGS, and management of many other chronic diseases from an outpatient medicine rotation. It's not like these patients walk into the hospital complaining of "CHF", no, they generally go to their doctors with dyspnea or swelling etc, and things go from there.
Also, I may be way off here, but I don't think there are ObGyn's who practice exclusively inpatient. That would be because pregnancy is generally not a condition that requires hospitalization. Most of the care between an ObGyn and his/her patient happens at an outpatient office.
I haven't done my OBGyn rotation yet, but some of my classmates have and every single one of them was assigned to a private practice. There they did outpatient OB visits, and Gyn visits; and attended deliveries and surgeries at the hospital with the preceptor. So the notion of an "inpatient" OBGyn rotation seems a little off to me. You should be getting a mix of both. Now if what you're talking about is an OBGyn rotation where you never leave the clinic, like you aren't invited to the hospital with the preceptor, then that's a different story; but doesn't make a rotation "outpatient" that just makes it a piss-poor OBGyn experience.
Does the hospital count DOs and Carribean students together? Hospitals/DO schools have started to do this sneaky thing to pack students on rotations. The have quotas on the number of med students they can have on a rotation, but they count DO students separately from MD students (Caribbean) allowing them to take twice as many students.
Again, I have no experience in dealing with Caribbean students out west where I'm training so I can't comment on this issue.
Is there an organized didactic program at the hospital in which med students can participate? Students sent to hospitals without residency programs in that department. No residency program means no lectures, no teaching rounds, no attendings willing to round on their patients with students. No interns/residents there to help students along.
Again, none of this is absolutely true. There are still journal clubs, things like tumor board and morbidity/mortality conferences etc at most hospitals, and I've been able to be involved in this type of thing at every rotation I've been on so far, even in the places without residents.
Does the school compensate attendings to teach? No $$ = no teaching. Attendings are busy people. If you don't pay them to take the time out of their day to teach, they have no incentive to teach.
This is not always (or even necessarily mostly) true. There are plenty of attendings out there that like to teach, and who are willing to take students on as a way to give back. Also keep in mind that one way for a DO attending to earn AOA CME credit is to precept students. Taking on students will generally save Osteopathic physicians thousands of dollars in CME expenses so they are being compensated whether directly or indirectly.
But I've had some of my very best experiences so far on rotations that weren't paid for by my school.
What rotations are required? What is available? No required neurology rotation means they had such a hard time finding neurology rotations for students that they couldn't require students do one. No neurosurg rotation available means no chance to see neurosurg. No child psych rotation means you won't be seeing child psych.
Again, this is something to look at. But bear in mind that during 4th year you can do VSAS to a place that does have what you'd like to see. And in 3rd year you're not likely to have time in the schedule to do too much specialized surgery. Also, many highly specialized fields won't take 3rd year students to begin with. Lots of ER rotations are reserved for 4th year's, as are things like Cardiology at most places I've encountered. So while you want to see options, your 3rd year will be so full of core rotations that you won't have much space for esoteric rotations to begin with. So while worth considering it's not something that should be a deal breaker.
Which professors from years 1&2 will be continuing to teach students years 3&4? No continuity in teaching means a massive disconnect in your education.
This is a weird one, and I fail to see how this is either accurate or really important at all.
Investigate your field of interest. If you have an interest in peds, ask to speak to someone in the pediatrics department about the rotation. Ask them what the rotation is like for med students. If you can't talk to anyone at all for even a few minutes, this is a red flag.
I agree here.
