ICU elective

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675R

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I have a pretty nice/educational fourth year lined up thus far. I have so far opted to take medical ICU as an elective because I thought it would be both very educational and look good on my application.

Speaking with a resident, they said it was basically going to be running a lot of codes and just a crap ton of work.

Alternatively, I could take peds cardiology which I really enjoyed my two elective on (got to read lots of cardiac echos and the heart is a fun organ system!)

Any recommendations? Thanks

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My advice: do whatever is required by your school early and try to enjoy 4th year (whether that means easy courses or topics you enjoy/are interested in).

Residency programs aren't going to be impressed that you made a hard schedule for yourself. Nobody even asked about courses once the whole season.


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Thank you very much. I've locked in all my required courses early (plus DR and interventional electives) and left interview season open. Just selecting electives now
 
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I recommend ICU. It is a good experience.
 
Thank you very much. I've locked in all my required courses early (plus DR and interventional electives) and left interview season open. Just selecting electives now
If you left interview season open, your number one criteria for a rotation should be flexibility in scheduling time off. I doubt ICU is going to let you have multiple paired days off
 
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I am running into this same issue. I am leaning towards doing an ICU month. I think it will help reinforce physiology and help get a little more comfortable around acutely sick patients. Also probably not a bad way to try to practice reading CXRs. The rest of my M4 year will likely be fairly cush but I think an ICU rotation will definitely pay off for intern year.
 
If you left interview season open, your number one criteria for a rotation should be flexibility in scheduling time off. I doubt ICU is going to let you have multiple paired days off
I have november, december, and january off. So my hope is that I won't have to wrry about interview season
 
I think that anyone going into IR , ICU should be required. Part of ESIR and IR/DR integrated residency is the ICU month. The more ICU training you get the more comfortable you will be. I think you should try to get a basic foundation on non invasive ventilation and airway management approaches. CPAP, BIPAP, nasal canula, nonrebreather, oral airways, ambubag, jaw thrust, chin tilt, basic rules of intubation. You should also learn about the various causes of shock distributive, cardiogenic,hypovolemic etc. You should learn about the basic pressors (norepi, epi, vasopressin, dopamine, dobutamine, phenylephrine) and also basic anti-hypertensives (esmolol, nipride, clevidipine etc). Start to understand mass transfusion protocols. You should also hopefully see several codes (PEA, bradycardia, systole, vtach(pulseless),vfib etc). This will give you much more confidence as an intern and when you deal with sick patients that come down to the IR suites. The more ICU rotations you can get the better off you will be in the long run, when you are managing sick complicated patients in the IR suites. Good luck.
 
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If you're interested in IR, then ICU is a good idea. It will also make the transition to ICU as a PGY1 a bit less traumatic, or at least it did for me.
 
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