My third year clerkship schedule: What do you think?

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guitarguy23

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So here it is:

Family-->Peds-->Surgery-->(Break)-->Medicine-->Psych--->OB

Interested in something Medicine related, not so much surgery (at this point, at least)

Does anyone want to give some advice or drop some knowledge about how my schedule might benefit/hurt me next year? Any experiential tips would be much appreciated!
 
Looks like a great schedule to me.

I think that you are better off doing a rotation in what you are interested in towards the end of your core clerkships, which is where you have your medicine rotation. It means you well be well versed in hospital procedure and what it means to be a medical student on rotations, which is a skill in and of itself. You wil have a great opportunity to impress and get some LOR's

Good first rotation, you can get your legs underneath you slowly with family medicine (which tends to be less nasty of an environment)

Also, doing OB last is a plus because that is a tricky rotation to do early on in clerkship (trust me I know). It will be nice to have some experience in the hospital before starting on the L&D ward.
 
While I wouldn't put medicine first if you're thinking about going into it, I wouldn't leave it until the end either. I found it was the rotation that did the most in terms of improving my H&Ps and presentations and those skills have all bled over into my subsequent rotations. Presenting well does a lot in terms of the attendings' impressions of you.
 
Do medicine as early as possible, that way you can knock your AI out of the way and get LOR, and do away rotations later. Medicine will help you in other clerkships tremendously
 
Your schedule is fine. Even if you had medicine (or whatever else you're interested in) first, you'd get something out of it that would help you on other rotations, and if you had it last, you'd have the most experience and be able to wow your attendings.
 
Dral said:
You might get crushed by FM shelf since you have it first...one of the tougher ones.

Have fun with 3rd year though. It's fun to finally get your feet wet so to speak.
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This was my concern. Is there really no way to overcome that? I'm a strong student and a hard worker, so I just assumed I could bust my butt to prepare for that first shelf.
 
Everyone will be crushed by the family medicine shelf early. The percentiles are determined on a quarterly basis so you're just competing against people who are similarly ill-prepared.

There is absolutely NO order of rotations that is more advantageous than any other order of rotations. Anybody who tells you otherwise is craycray.
 
Kaputt said:
Everyone will be crushed by the family medicine shelf early. The percentiles are determined on a quarterly basis so you're just competing against people who are similarly ill-prepared.

There is absolutely NO order of rotations that is more advantageous than any other order of rotations. Anybody who tells you otherwise is craycray.
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Would disagree and say that medicine first greatly helps with all the other shelfs. And you're doing it immediately after step when the material is fresh - pimp questions are easy.
 
Wordead said:
Would disagree and say that medicine first greatly helps with all the other shelfs. And you're doing it immediately after step when the material is fresh - pimp questions are easy.
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I would disagree as well. My order of rotations, I felt, had a good, natural progression as a third year student:

Surgery, Anesthesia, Medicine, Cardio, Pulmonology, FM/OMM, FM, Peds, OB, Psych, Radiology

I got surgery out of the way first when expectations where low. I had no desire to pursue a surgical specialty or subspecialty so getting it out of the way was best for me. Anesthesia gave me a great break after the hustle and bustle of surgery. Medicine gave me a good background going forward for cardio and pulm. By that time I was well versed in the hospital setting and felt comfortable in my shoes so to speak which let me "shine" (as much as third year can) when I came to FM (knowing I more than likely wanted to do FM). Having the background of FM helped me with my peds and OB rotations and psych as well (as you do a lot of psych in FM). Radiology, well, that was just a good way to end the year and study for Step II.

I think my progression of rotations was awesome. I'd recommend it for someone interested in medicine over procedural specialties.
 
The family shelf will likely rock you, but as long as you prepare for it you'll pass.

Doing family before peds will help with peds significantly.

Doing family (and thus having to know IM) before surgery will help significantly.

Same with IM

Psych is kind of on it's own, but it's not a bad shelf.

OB/Gyn is going to be hard (b/c the hours suck), especially b/c you have it right after psych (which was like 7-3 for me most days). You may have also forgotten OR procedure and/or tying from your surgery rotation, which sucks.

At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter as long as you study your tail off for all your shelf exams.
 
mulberry said:
TL;DR of that article?
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Starting with IM (and to a lesser extent peds) shows significantly better clerkship exam and better clerkship grades, than starting with psych or FM.

The significant differences seem small (low low 70s vs low 70s) but this is also at the grade cutoff for high pass, so folks with IM first tend to be a whole grade higher.

Finally, there was no correlation with Step2 performance. So we all learn it eventually, just that people who start IM first have better intermediate grades through third year.
 
Wordead said:
Would disagree and say that medicine first greatly helps with all the other shelfs. And you're doing it immediately after step when the material is fresh - pimp questions are easy.
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sazerac said:
Starting with IM (and to a lesser extent peds) shows significantly better clerkship exam and better clerkship grades, than starting with psych or FM.
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Good to hear. I'm starting with IM in May!

Currently interested in Peds or EM (or both) and I have those in the middle of 3rd year (Oct-Nov). Then ending the year with Neuro/Psych, Surgery, and OB.
 
Do you guys get to choose the rotation order or does it get assigned to you without input?
 
solitarius said:
Do you guys get to choose the rotation order or does it get assigned to you without input?
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Probably how every school does it is different, but we fill out this crazy form with our preferences and when we want what, based on priority. So for example, I want to do peds, so I don't want to have peds first and I don't want to have it near the end, so peds was my first priority for the Sept/Oct block. It's basically like a lottery system, you usually get what you want with your first priority but after that it's kinda a crapshoot. I did request IM first so I'm happy I got that, but I also requested surgery 2nd and it ended up as my 2nd to last. Not complaining, as I am really pleased with my schedule overall and don't want to go into surgery anyway, but it would have been nice not to have surgery in the dead of winter. :cold:
 
in my opinion the best way to do it is IM --> Family ---> Surgery --> Break ---> pysch ---> peds ---> obs

i think if Peds and ob is closer together its better
 
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When I chose third year rotations, we got to choose what we started on, and everything followed the same sequence after that, with some minor variations on which rotation came first in an 8-week block (Psych vs Neuro, inpatient vs outpatient IM/Peds, Family vs. OB, etc).

With the class below us, they changed it, so you're assigned what you start on based on which dean you have, and all rotations follow the same *basic* schedule, with modifications on whether one rotation or another within each 12-week block comes first. The blocks are: Surgery (includes general surgery, surgical subspecialties, and anesthesia), IM (inpatient medicine, outpatient medicine, and EM), Peds/OB, and Psych/Neuro/Family.
 
Ismet said:
Good to hear. I'm starting with IM in May!

Currently interested in Peds or EM (or both) and I have those in the middle of 3rd year (Oct-Nov). Then ending the year with Neuro/Psych, Surgery, and OB.
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And that's just my opinion if you are looking to maximize scores on your shelfs.

As Bacchus said above, you may fiddle with things if you already have a specific focus and just want to do well on one specialty. I wanted to do a surgical subspecialty, and wanted med/surg first so I could best honor all my shelfs (b/c AOA is based on them) and spend the second half reading up for subIs.
 
Is it possible to honor your first core rotation 3rd year? Like, if I do IM first am I totally screwing myself if I decide I like/want to go into IM? Theoretically speaking.
 
mulberry said:
Is it possible to honor your first core rotation 3rd year? Like, if I do IM first am I totally screwing myself if I decide I like/want to go into IM? Theoretically speaking.
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Every school's criteria for honors is different. I had IM first, honors on shelf and clinical. But some schools set cutoffs at like 93 for the shelf....which would be a real beeyotch.
 
mulberry said:
Is it possible to honor your first core rotation 3rd year? Like, if I do IM first am I totally screwing myself if I decide I like/want to go into IM? Theoretically speaking.
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Definitely not. But it really depends on your school. Most people kind of understand that its going to be hard at first.

And the fact that the interns are brand new as well, they are learning the ropes and are in a much harder position than you are. Although that might mean your learning experience won't be as good, you also will be given a lot more slack.
 
We really got no preferences at my school this year... Used to be that you could choose. I have FM first, then surgery (my interest thus far), with IM later on. Any advice? I'm going to bust my ass. Also to honor you have to get in the low 90s on the shelfs...
 
mulberry said:
Is it possible to honor your first core rotation 3rd year? Like, if I do IM first am I totally screwing myself if I decide I like/want to go into IM? Theoretically speaking.
Click to expand...

Yes, of course it's possible, but improbable if your school has fairly stringent criteria for honors. I had FM first and that shelf was oh so painful...
 
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