number of rads elective???

[unoriginal]

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Trying to plan my 4th year schedule.... How many months of rads electives should I do?

3rd year: 1 month D.R. at home program
4th year: 1 month rads research, 2 months of D.R. at programs I am interested in.


What are other good electives? I am looking at doing ped's, pathology, EM, Sub-internship, ambulatory rotations.

 

[AD2020]

Trying to plan my 4th year schedule.... How many months of rads electives should I do?

3rd year: 1 month D.R. at home program
4th year: 1 month rads research, 2 months of D.R. at programs I am interested in.


What are other good electives? I am looking at doing ped's, pathology, EM, Sub-internship, ambulatory rotations.

I'm also planning my 4th year schedule and I was thinking about doing away electives as well. I asked a 4th year going into rads what he thought about aways and this was his response:

"I don't know how effective [away electives] really [are] for getting you an interview since you don't really demonstrate any competence while sitting behind an attending and resident at the reading room." He thought that they are best for gauging your interest in a particular program - he also mentioned that the PD at my school told him not to bother doing aways for longer than 2 weeks, because that would be "a waste of time."

Another 4th year I spoke with had similar thoughts and said "if you are really psyched about a particular program, you should do an IR rotation since you can make a better impression and work with just a few attendings."

So your saying you want to do 2 months of aways was surprising to me, but if you do it in the right way, I think it could be helpful. I'm still undecided whether I'm going to do any aways. Anyone have thoughts on whether this could hurt me in any context? Has anyone had an interviewer ask "why didn't you do a rads rotation away from your home institution?"

 

[DaveOT]

I didn't do any away rotations, because I was thinking along the lines of "you're just sitting quietly behind an attending at a different hospital." Turns out that some programs give interview preference to people who did rotations with them, though--just because you showed enough interest to spend time there.

I wouldn't say it's required, though, and no interviewer asked me why I didn't do away months.

 

[fun8stuff]

I'm also planning my 4th year schedule and I was thinking about doing away electives as well. I asked a 4th year going into rads what he thought about aways and this was his response:

"I don't know how effective [away electives] really [are] for getting you an interview since you don't really demonstrate any competence while sitting behind an attending and resident at the reading room." He thought that they are best for gauging your interest in a particular program - he also mentioned that the PD at my school told him not to bother doing aways for longer than 2 weeks, because that would be "a waste of time."

Another 4th year I spoke with had similar thoughts and said "if you are really psyched about a particular program, you should do an IR rotation since you can make a better impression and work with just a few attendings."

So your saying you want to do 2 months of aways was surprising to me, but if you do it in the right way, I think it could be helpful. I'm still undecided whether I'm going to do any aways. Anyone have thoughts on whether this could hurt me in any context? Has anyone had an interviewer ask "why didn't you do a rads rotation away from your home institution?"

I was also wondering same thing. Would it be frowned upon or would programs think that 3 rad rotations 3rd year was too many?

 

[unoriginal]

bump

 

[Taurus]

I've heard the same that away rotations are not that helpful in rads. If you had to do aways for 1 month at a time, IR probably has more impact. Another resident told me that 2 week rotations aren't such a bad idea because you just want to know if this is a place you want to go to, not to necessarily get interviews.

 

[jpro]

I did 2 rad electives and 0 away electives. Matched and happy

 

[prophecy2]

I did one away rotation and happily matched.

 

[calicali]

would three away rotations be overkill?

 

[Amxcvbcv]

would three away rotations be overkill?

I would say yes. Unless they're being done in the interest of getting interviews at places where your application might go unnoticed.

 

[calicali]

do students ussually apply for aways at a radiology dept in general, or to a specific subspeciality within rads (i.e. MSK, neuro)?

 

[DCMDtobe]

For me, after a few weeks of sitting in the "back row" on rads rotations, I had had enough. I mean, it was priceless in that I knew I wanted to do rads, but I was sick of just observing. I wanted to fast forward to the beginning of rads residency. Doing 3 or 4 months or radiology, 2 or 3 away rotations: I can't imagine.

If there's a program you really want to target, do a rotation there. Preferably 2 weeks. Be nice to everyone, but have the secretary or a resident tell you who sits on the committee, and meet those people, esp. the PD of course, but also the other attendings and residents who might interview you, etc. All in all you want to make this impression: he (or she) would be a pleasure to work with (fun, considerate, smart, interesting to chat with, whatever strengths you have), and he'd be solid / competent.

0 away rotations here and matched at my #1, but I'm sure an away rotation or two would have landed me an interview at a couple of programs that otherwise didn't extend an invite.

Best of luck. No worries. The whole crazy match process works out for the far majority of us, especially if you're on the ball and are reasonable in how you go about things.