OMFS Externship Rant

[surfline]

Quick rant to any PD's or residents that browse this form:

If you haven't opened externships to applicants, you are shooting yourself in the foot!

By now, I would say most competitive applicants have filled their summer extern spots. So, if you are waiting until June or July to reopen, odds are most are not going to have another free week to check out your program. Whether they were interested in your program or not, you will likely have your program ranked lower than if they had an in-person experience. Also, now you have to figure out who is the "best fit" for your program during a single interview.

I understand some programs are under the mercy of the medical school, but it's still annoying when the program says "check back next month." No one is going to wait 4 weeks to roll the dice on whether a program is going to open up or not.

Is anyone else stressed out about this situation, or is it just me?

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[Big Easy OMFS]

My Dental School administration will not allow me to go on an externship. The academic dean will not write the letter of good standing that basically all externships require. I think most programs will understand that externships have been up in the air this application cycle.

 

[Life of Pablo]

Quick rant to any PD's or residents that browse this form:

If you haven't opened externships to applicants, you are shooting yourself in the foot!

By now, I would say most competitive applicants have filled their summer extern spots. So, if you are waiting until June or July to reopen, odds are most are not going to have another free week to check out your program. Whether they were interested in your program or not, you will likely have your program ranked lower than if they had an in-person experience. Also, now you have to figure out who is the "best fit" for your program during a single interview.

I understand some programs are under the mercy of the medical school, but it's still annoying when the program says "check back next month." No one is going to wait 4 weeks to roll the dice on whether a program is going to open up or not.

Is anyone else stressed out about this situation, or is it just me?

I don't think PD's decide if they can accept externs or not. A lot of the time it's the hospital system that decides.

 

[Life of Pablo]

My Dental School administration will not allow me to go on an externship. The academic dean will not write the letter of good standing that basically all externships require. I think most programs will understand that externships have been up in the air this application cycle.

Wow that stinks. Why won't they write it?

 

[Big Easy OMFS]

Wow that stinks. Why won't they write it?

COVID, I think they are following the medical system policies at the University

 

[Ivy.ch]

Quick rant to any PD's or residents that browse this form:

If you haven't opened externships to applicants, you are shooting yourself in the foot!

By now, I would say most competitive applicants have filled their summer extern spots. So, if you are waiting until June or July to reopen, odds are most are not going to have another free week to check out your program. Whether they were interested in your program or not, you will likely have your program ranked lower than if they had an in-person experience. Also, now you have to figure out who is the "best fit" for your program during a single interview.

I understand some programs are under the mercy of the medical school, but it's still annoying when the program says "check back next month." No one is going to wait 4 weeks to roll the dice on whether a program is going to open up or not.

Is anyone else stressed out about this situation, or is it just me?

Usually the hospital administration is the thing holding up externships, not PDs.

I don't think externships influenced my ranking much. If anything, it showed me the negatives of the programs which may not have been obvious from an interview. Programs will find plenty of applicants even without externs every week.

Last cycle, a bunch of applicants had 0 externships and they were fine. Schedule some that are open. If there's nothing, then there's nothing. Externships aren't as important as you might think. PDs and residents have more important things on their minds right now than externs.

 

[surfline]

Usually the hospital administration is the thing holding up externships, not PDs.

I don't think externships influenced my ranking much. If anything, it showed me the negatives of the programs which may not have been obvious from an interview. Programs will find plenty of applicants even without externs every week.

Last cycle, a bunch of applicants had 0 externships and they were fine. Schedule some that are open. If there's nothing, then there's nothing. Externships aren't as important as you might think. PDs and residents have more important things on their minds right now than externs.

I suppose if you go to a program marketed as "strong" but they turn out to be overworked or weak, then sure, an externship can show you those red flags. But, from my experience, most programs nowadays have their **** together. Each externship I have participated in exceeded my expectations in terms of resident autonomy, call schedule, culture, etc.

I also disagree about externships not being that important. I have had multiple programs tell me "If you extern here, you will interview here." Considering most programs interview <two dozen applicants, that gives you a pretty big step forward in terms of matching.

 

[omfsing]

Best thing to do is message various programs and ask if there are alternatives. At our program we have externs log onto zoom didactics. It’s not ideal but at least it’s something

 

[Like_Groceries]

I have had multiple programs tell me "If you extern here, you will interview here.

Which programs said this lol

 

[super frank]

Historically some programs mainly interview candidates who have externed there. Why wouldn’t they?

 

[nguos]

Historically some programs mainly interview candidates who have externed there. Why wouldn’t they?

I might disagree with that, I have externed at 4 different programs, and ended up interviewing at only one of them and 5 other programs that I never visited.
keep in mind that programs get around 2 externs/month and if they have to interview each one who visited them that means they limit their interview choices to less than 1/3 if they take 3 . Externship is for the applicant to know about the program and wether it will be a good fit for them or not, but not necessarily for the program to know about their future resident.

 

[Tootyfruity]

On the list of priorities for residents or PDs, I'm not sure extens makes it up very high

 

[SilkyJ]

Not sure that many people would consider this “shooting themselves in the foot”. Pretty much every program has a long list of quality candidates banging at the door. An externship isn’t the only barometer for predicting how a candidate would behave as a resident.

Also, if you were to ask most PDs if they can correctly tell you an extern’s name at the end of their externship week, they may or may not be able to do that.

Regardless, as everyone else has mentioned, accepting externs is probably not even a decision that the PD makes, that would usually be a directive from the hospital anyway.

 

[Ivy.ch]

Are externs allowed to do any procedures or they are purely observational?

Depends on the program. Spectrum includes…

- Stay away from the patient, don’t even scrub in, just try to watch over all the bodies.
- Can scrub in to retract, but no treating patients.
- Can scrub in and do basic things like suture and easy extractions in the OR.
- Can see patients in the out patient clinic.