Is one away rotation okay?

[ENTapplicant]

I've been alternating between signing up for 1 vs 2 away rotations for the past month. I lean towards one because of financial and home-life considerations. I was hoping to receive a "shouldn't be a problem" from the SDN community before committing to doing one away rotation less than seems to be the average in ENT (2 aways).

Stats:
Step 1 > 270
Top-tier medical school
Honors in all courses (await potential AOA election in about a month)
Currently have 4 non-ENT publications (3 first author) and 3 non-ENT poster/oral presentations
Submitted 1 first author ENT manuscript and 3 ENT abstracts
Plan to submit/have accepted 2 more non-ENT first author publications by ERAS submission
Several strong volunteer and leadership positions within school and community
LOR: strong from non-ENT research mentor, decent/strong from young ENT faculty, decent/strong from chair of home ENT program, and hopefully one from the away rotation

Would anyone advise against doing just one rotation at a program of personal interest with a Doximity ranking around 15-25?

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[spiker268]

You’ll be fine honestly not doing any. I know lots of kids at top tier schools are advised to not do any as they look better on paper. I still think it’s important to do at least 1 so you can see another program other than your own. As long as you have strong letters, you will get interviews from almost all the places you apply, and will be set.

 

[clinicallabguy]

It is certainly possible to match without doing any away rotations. So it is certainly possible to match when only doing 1 away rotation. I did not do any away rotations for similar reasons. I was strapped for cash and preferred to keep my savings for application and interview travel expenses. Because I didn't do any, my view of away rotations my be biased. But my view is that they are there for you, if you benefit from them. If you are interested in a particular program and want to see how it really functions day to day, then I think that is the ideal situation for an away rotation. If someone wants to match into any great program (or any program at all), then maybe aways are slightly less beneficial to them.

Away rotations may actually be more beneficial to the programs than to the applicants. It makes it much easier to evaluate those particular applicants.

 

[ENTapplicant]

Thanks for the input! I'm glad that it won't be much of an outlier to do just one. I am very much looking forward to all the ENT training during residency, but it's only once in a lifetime that you get an entire year for clinical electives like the fourth year of medical school, so I'd rather use it to learn about other things while I still have the chance (and also save money).

 

[eliteeli]

I've been alternating between signing up for 1 vs 2 away rotations for the past month. I lean towards one because of financial and home-life considerations. I was hoping to receive a "shouldn't be a problem" from the SDN community before committing to doing one away rotation less than seems to be the average in ENT (2 aways).

Stats:
Step 1 > 270
Top-tier medical school
Honors in all courses (await potential AOA election in about a month)
Currently have 4 non-ENT publications (3 first author) and 3 non-ENT poster/oral presentations
Submitted 1 first author ENT manuscript and 3 ENT abstracts
Plan to submit/have accepted 2 more non-ENT first author publications by ERAS submission
Several strong volunteer and leadership positions within school and community
LOR: strong from non-ENT research mentor, decent/strong from young ENT faculty, decent/strong from chair of home ENT program, and hopefully one from the away rotation

Would anyone advise against doing just one rotation at a program of personal interest with a Doximity ranking around 15-25?

I did 1 away, I matched. No one batted an eye at this. Zero might look strange, but probably wouldn't hold you back too much either assuming you could get 3 solid LORs from your home program. You probably want to do one just for yourself either way, so you have something to compare your home program to when ranking.

 

[treebeardette]

I did 1 and matched this year. Nobody cared at all. Met a few people on the interview trail who had zero and weren't struggling for interviews. Aways are helpful for breaking through a regional bias, so I would suggest you do your away in a different part of the country from your med school.

Looking at the applicant data from this year so far, 2 aways is definitely the most common, but 16/63 reported doing only 1 away.