Need everyone's advice

[Ologist]

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My school is doing it's lottery tomorrow for our 3rd year rotation sites. Here's my situation + question:

I'm a D.O. student that will be taking the COMLEX on june 7,8 with every other D.O. I've scheduled the USMLE for the 1st week of july in order to give me a good 4 weeks of 24hr free time to prepare. I know some of you out there will tell me that i should take it very close to the COMLEX, but my mind is made up on this point. My school doesn't give us enough time, in my opinion , to even prepare well for the COMLEX, let alone the USMLE.

So here is my situation. I have to take my vacation month right away for my 1st rotation in order to have the free time to take the early july USMLE. In addition, my school won't let me do my "cores" during the 1st half of my 3rd year, since i'm taking my vacation then. So i'm looking at starting off my 3rd year with such rotations as OB/GYN, Psych, Peds, and worst of all my two 3rd year electives. I'm concerned b/c people have told me that i want to "save" my electives for the end of my 3rd year so that i can set them up in fields i might want to go into and shine and get letters of rec. If i continue with my plan i will end my 3rd year with Family practice, IM, and surgery. Will this hurt my chances with residency?

My top choices right now for residency are IM, gas, radiology, EM. I'm ranked almost at the top of my class of approx.135. With 4 weeks of studying for the USMLE, i hope to get a score of 230+.

Please help!!! Thank you all in advance.

 

[jamie]

1. Could you take the USMLE at the end of June? I think many people will tell you that studying full-time for 3 weeks will be more than adequate (it was for me, and I did just fine).
2. Many people (myself included) recommend not doing the clerkship in the field in which you are interested first -- do something you are pretty sure you won't want to go into first to get oriented to life in the hospital, the role of the med student, etc. That being said, I am not sure how the order in which you do the clerkships will hurt your chances, as long as you work hard and do well in them. I did medicine first, and they took into account that it was my first rotation in my grades (ie, cutting me some slack).