M4 Away Rotations

[Daydreamer2008]

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Hello,
I have searched the forums and didn't see my question discussed. I actually haven't started med school yet (starting in the fall) but I already know I plan to come back to Cali for residency. I want to do as many away rotations in Cali as I can during M4 but one of the schools I'm accepted to wrote that they only allow up to 10 weeks away (which doesn't seem like a lot). The other school I'm accepted to told me M4 students spend up to 4 months away from school (I'm assuming this includes vacation and stuff). Since this is a really important factor for me, I really want to find this out now. Has anyone tried to extend the away rotation time? Just seeing if this was even possible...

 

[Ashers]

Hello,
I have searched the forums and didn't see my question discussed. I actually haven't started med school yet (starting in the fall) but I already know I plan to come back to Cali for residency. I want to do as many away rotations in Cali as I can during M4 but one of the schools I'm accepted to wrote that they only allow up to 10 weeks away (which doesn't seem like a lot). The other school I'm accepted to told me M4 students spend up to 4 months away from school (I'm assuming this includes vacation and stuff). Since this is a really important factor for me, I really want to find this out now. Has anyone tried to extend the away rotation time? Just seeing if this was even possible...

That's probably a wrong assumption. It sounds like what my school says with it's policy of doing up to 4 away electives. I've known people who did 3 away electives and 3 months of vacation in CA => 6 months away. The school doesn't care if you're in the state or out for vacation. The catch at my school is that you can't do a required month during May, so you can only have elective or vacation, AND you have to be present in the state in May for graduation and before, so basically, you can do 3 aways feasibly.

 

[scottbro]

That's probably a wrong assumption. It sounds like what my school says with it's policy of doing up to 4 away electives. I've known people who did 3 away electives and 3 months of vacation in CA => 6 months away. The school doesn't care if you're in the state or out for vacation. The catch at my school is that you can't do a required month during May, so you can only have elective or vacation, AND you have to be present in the state in May for graduation and before, so basically, you can do 3 aways feasibly.

usually 4 months.

 

[yeasterbunny]

My school also states that you can only do two 4th year rotations in the same field, so if you wanted to do more than two aways you would likely have to rotate through in fields you weren't necessarily interested in matching into (which sorta defeats the reason you wanted to do that away).

 

[Ashers]

My school also states that you can only do two 4th year rotations in the same field, so if you wanted to do more than two aways you would likely have to rotate through in fields you weren't necessarily interested in matching into (which sorta defeats the reason you wanted to do that away).

Wow, it's like we go to the same school or something...

Unless you just want to do an away for fun, like Derm in HI at a friend's office, or anesthesia in London with a friend. The whole max 2 in 1 field rule is annoying though.

 

[Kubed]

We don't have the "no more than 2" rule in writing, however our "electives" are defined for us so that in reality you can only do 2 rotations in any given specialty (except if you want do to FM or IM, then you can do 4... that's how our school tries to get people into primary care 🙄)

 

[Daydreamer2008]

Thanks for your responses! So I contacted the school and it looks like 10 weeks of away electives can count towards graduation, but I can do more away electives if I so choose. The other school allows for 13 weeks of elective away time to count towards graduation. So I guess the difference is pretty trivial.

Thanks everyone!

 

[yeasterbunny]

...So I contacted the school and it looks like 10 weeks of away electives can count towards graduation, but I can do more away electives if I so choose.

i.e. you can do more but you will have to burn a vacation month to do so.
I don't imagine you would want to do more than 3 months anyway but 10 weeks could potentially be a bit limiting. Remember all schools structure their rotation schedule a bit differently. Some will let you do 2 week rotations, others are 4 weeks but not necessarily coinciding with the calendar month, and others do straight calendar months. In other words, if you go to a school that gives you straight calendar month blocks but the 4 weeks you want to do away is from mid-July to mid-August because of the way that school structures its rotations, you would have to count July as your away rotation and burn a vacation month in August. I have known people who have run into this problem. Hopefully you could find some places to do 2 week stints to fill in the cracks (or just take some time to relax).

 

[Ypo.]

Wow, you are really thinking ahead. I didn't even start to think about this until 2nd year of med school.

 

[Ashers]

Wow, you are really thinking ahead. I didn't even start to think about this until 2nd year of med school.

I asked about the ability to do aways, specifically international aways during interviews. Some schools didn't seem to be that good about it. It definitely played a part in which schools I liked more.

 

[Ypo.]

I never even thought to ask about that. I just got lucky that my school lets us do as many as we want as long as we fill our other requirements.