Important MS3 Clerkships for pathology?

[Xinlitik]

Hi, I'm an MS2 working on my MS3 schedule. What are the clerkships that are most important for someone interested in pathology, in terms of performance and learning opportunities? I figure surgery is important, so I was thinking about taking it as my 2nd or 3rd so I have some experience, and IM as well, which I'd take shortly after. Is that reasonable?

Thanks

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[mlw03]

Yep.

 

[Enkidu]

Hi, I'm an MS2 working on my MS3 schedule. What are the clerkships that are most important for someone interested in pathology, in terms of performance and learning opportunities? I figure surgery is important, so I was thinking about taking it as my 2nd or 3rd so I have some experience, and IM as well, which I'd take shortly after. Is that reasonable?

Thanks

Oh, I'm in the same boat - Which rotations are *not* important for pathology? Pediatrics, maybe? Psychiatry? Neurology?

Seems that surgery, IM, and OB/GYN might be the most important, other than pathology itself, I guess.

At my school we can choose between neurology and neurosurgery for our Med 3 "neuro" rotation - would neurosurgery give me a better application for pathology?

 

[KCShaw]

There's no magic bullet. Surgery can be somewhat useful, but mainly if there's a lot of surgical oncology -- there's still relevance in watching or being involved in a CABG or a hip replacement, but it's probably not as much of a yield as gen surg or a subspecialty that does a lot of tumor surgery. Honestly any rotation that you can get involved and get a better understanding of real world clinical workflows, what they need and don't need from pathology (AP or CP), and so on will be useful. Followed by anything interesting enough to talk about while on your pathology rotation/residency interviews.

I wouldn't get too caught up in it -- there's no "can't miss" rotation (except, well, pathology) nor really a complete "don't bother" rotation in relation to pathology, though some are certainly less path-centric than others.

 

[brainsalads]

I'd say your Step 1 score is more important than any clerkships. As long as you make pass or As and Bs, interviewers dont care that much. Because the way the ERAS information packet is set up, figuring out grades and performance for all the different medical schools are different. Pretty much everyone just zips down to the thing thats the same for everyone, the USMLE page. It may not sound fair, but most attendings dont have time to read everything in that big pdf file and they just look at your scores, gloss over your personal statement, skim through your letters for red flags, and judge most of what they think of you by your interview with them. Also more important than clerkships are pathology electives. Having a bit of experience and maybe a couple path letters is much better than making an A rather than a B in surgery, which really doesnt help that much for pathology IMO. We just want normal, nice, teamplayers. Most everyone is trainable, no matter what pathology department you match. We want hardworkers who won't rock the boat, bonus if they are a genius.

 

[KCShaw]

Few clerkship/rotation supervisors have a decent working knowledge of pathology, only what they need/want/expect from pathology -- while their impressions are useful to understand, it's not going to land you a residency spot or make you a young gun in pathology by any stretch. Use those experiences to round yourself out and see/do things you otherwise never will, and whatever application they have to pathology will come along. Don't look back and regret you never did X, Y, or Z when you had a chance -- I certainly can't think of anyone who looks back and goes man, those extra surg rotations totally made my life, so glad I didn't sleep for four months for that. Step I is by far the most important "high yield" thing to focus on for getting a decent residency, for better or worse, though not really for becoming a young gun, which is really, really difficult to do in a pre-residency setting. But for those who just can't stop dreaming of pathology the previous posts still hold, if colored by the way the question was asked.

I nor anyone else in residency programs I talked to at any length gave much of a flying fart what rotations an applicant did nor what their "grades" or other numbers were beyond Step I and to a lesser extent Step II, -except- that they needed to have some kind of experience in a pathology department, unless their non-path experiences included something cool like did a winter in Antarctica. (Get it? Cool...?)

 

[Xinlitik]

Thank you all for your replies!