Interview/school conflicts - are attendings understanding?

[Dermaholic]

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I know that many if not all of us will have to take some time off of scheduled electives/clerkships (like neurology) in order to attend interviews. There are some applicants already facing issues with handling conflicts between interviews and electives.

For you former applicants of derm :

• Were attendings understanding of the inflexibility of dermatology interview dates?
• Did your grades suffer as a consequence of going on the interviews that interfered with clinics?
• Did you have to turn any interviews down in order to avoid problems with required clerkships/electives
• Is there any good way to approach departments about the conflicts that arise? - asking as each interview comes up or waiting til they all come in? Offering to do make up work due to lost clinic hours?
• Is there a rule of thumb as to how many days you can take off of a 1 month elective/clerkship (assuming it can't be rescheduled)?

Please give us your words of wisdom!

 

[werd]

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i'd recommend asking each interview as it comes up. i'd see what the rotation policy is rather than offer to do makeup.
it depends on the school and elective. probably highly variable.

missing too much time usually isn't a problem unless you're doing an a sub-i or on surgery. given the lack of rigor during the 4th year of med school, it isn't too tough to come up with an easy december/january.

 

[Dermguy]

I know that many if not all of us will have to take some time off of scheduled electives/clerkships (like neurology) in order to attend interviews. There are some applicants already facing issues with handling conflicts between interviews and electives.

For you former applicants of derm :

• Were attendings understanding of the inflexibility of dermatology interview dates?
• Did your grades suffer as a consequence of going on the interviews that interfered with clinics?
• Did you have to turn any interviews down in order to avoid problems with required clerkships/electives
• Is there any good way to approach departments about the conflicts that arise? - asking as each interview comes up or waiting til they all come in? Offering to do make up work due to lost clinic hours?
• Is there a rule of thumb as to how many days you can take off of a 1 month elective/clerkship (assuming it can't be rescheduled)?

Please give us your words of wisdom!

I took January off and in December I did an elective that my school allowed us as many excused absences as we needed. I did 10 derm interviews and 10 prelim/TY interviews so I did end up missing a fair number of days. The previous poster gave good advice. Offer to make stuff up and let people know in advance, but don't worry too much about it.