Well our school is picking M3 tracks right now and I was wondering what people here would pick. Do M3 tracks even matter? Everyone pretty much has the same schedule + 2 electives.
I wouldn't lead off with IM, surgery, OB, family med, cardiology, peds, or psych. I'm kidding, but IM before surgery is sound advice and I'd probably avoid ward based IM first if possible.
I did IM first and liked it. It is the rotation that requires the most studying so helped for me to be at the beginning of 3rd year when I was most motivated and then it laid a foundation for the rest of the year. Also helps you get used to EMRs as you tend to do the most chart review, note writing, etc. Step 1 carries over for a number of things as well. That said if you are highly considering IM then maybe not? I was still able to get Honors though so maybe it doesn't matter.
Past that I would just highly recommend putting your least interested one/or the easiest one last. By the end of 3rd year you are pretty over it.
To the extent that there is any benefit to doing rotations in a specific order - I would argue that there isn’t much of one - I think doing medicine first is ideal. You will use that knowledge in all of your remaining rotations and your shelf exams will include medicine content on the exams.
That being said, I wouldn’t stress too much about it. In the big scheme of things it just doesn’t matter all that much.
If you have no interest in surgery, I would recommend doing surgery early. Yes, the shelf will suck but you'll get a lot of advance studying in for Internal Medicine. But even more importantly, you won't complain about the hours in any other rotation because you will know how bad it can get.
I did surgery first, Ob/gyn in January which is what I want to do and Medicine last. I loved my schedule. Hardest schedule first, I had some experience but was refreshed for the specialty I was most interested in and ending with medicine a couple weeks before I take step2. I have not had any problems with shelves but some people have a harder time with them.
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