Is October too late??

[bailey-b]

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Just discovered this forum and amazed at the wealth of info. I have a question. I recently finished my surgery months and got to spend some time doing Anesthesia and loved it. I feel like I am a little behind on the electives since this was a recent discovery. I currently have my elective set up for October. Is this too late? I am able to move it up to September but have to rearrange my entire 4th year schedule which could be a real pain. However, if it is necessary, I will do it. That is the month that I hope to get some anesthesia letters. July and August I have to complete rotations that my school won't change. What do you think??

 

[dbiddy808]

When you apply you should probably have a LOR from either a critical care attending or an anesthesiologist. Ideally you'd have at least 1-2 of such LORs. Unless you can get these LORs, I'd say you should move up your rotation.

The problem with having your rotation in October is that you wouldn't be able to get an anesthesia LOR into ERAS until the end of October. By the end of October many programs have sent out their interview invites. You'd still probably get a good number of invites if you applied broadly, but you may not get one or two invites at places you would have liked to go.

 

[2ndyear]

I agree with dbiddy. Getting a LOR from an October rotation can mean really having it in your hands and in ERAS sometime in November, realistically. This assumes you ask near the end of your rotation and letters just don't spit themselves out automatically. You will likely have interviews in December, possibly 1-2 at the end of November so you need need need to have a month of anesthesia done by that time, which it sounds like you have covered. Now as to how to get a letter earlier...you've got July and August right? If it really is too big a pain to rearrange your schedule to allow a September elective then shoot for some serious shadowing outside of your July and/or August rotations. This will help you in numerous ways, number one being you get more exposure to the field and if you had to change your mind it won't be too late for ERAS, and number two being the all important letter. Anesthesiology is a 24 hour field, so you can always find someone in house. Explore a bit, maybe find a community hospital. Those guys don't get students as often and are usually very receptive to having someone around. Now this doesn't mean spending every night on call with someone, but if you're on psych or something like that you have plenty of free time so use it.

FYI, I did my elective in September last year, applied to ERAS with no anesthesia letter. Got some interviews before the letter even got there, letter came in early October and everything went fine for me. Good luck!

 

[BassDominator]

By all means, push up your elective if you can.... but I also did my elective in October. I got my anesthesia letters in mid-October and had absolutely no problem getting interviews. Just make sure your letters are all in a few days before Nov 1 when the Dean's Letter goes out.

 

[bailey-b]

Thanks for the input. I took your advice and moved it up to September.

 

[Skip Intro]

Good advice. I'm actually doing two anesthesiology electives (and am considering a research selective in Chicago) - I'm in the middle of one now, and the second in August.

I'd agree that you should move it up, if possible.

-Skip