Order of 3rd year rotations

[SS01]

My school has four 12 week blocks. Any suggestions on the order, and why? I dont know much about how 3rd year works, so any advice would be greatly appreciated.

1) Peds/OBGYN
2) Psych/Neuro/elective
3) Medicine/Primary care
4) Surgery/elective

*Rules of my school: Peds/Psych are always back to back, and Medicine/surgery are always back to back* Is it better to do surgery/medicine in the first half of the year, or save them for the second half? If it helps I'm pretty sure I'm not interested in surgery.

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[LRAccord624]

I had medicine first and then surgery. Sometimes I wonder if I would have done better on the shelves if they weren't my first rotations. But then I realize that I would be too burnt out during those two if they were in the spring. My advice to you is to get them out of the way while you're still all energetic and excited. They give you a good foundation of knowledge for the other rotations (or so people say), and you can really appreciate the decreased time commitment required from other rotations like psych.

 

[SS01]

I had medicine first and then surgery. Sometimes I wonder if I would have done better on the shelves if they weren't my first rotations. But then I realize that I would be too burnt out during those two if they were in the spring. My advice to you is to get them out of the way while you're still all energetic and excited. They give you a good foundation of knowledge for the other rotations (or so people say), and you can really appreciate the decreased time commitment required from other rotations like psych.

I'm wondering if I would be so burnt out after step 1 that I would want to start with some of the easier rotations, and then save medicine/surgery for later. I've heard that since they are the more difficult rotations, its good to get used to the shelf exams with some of the other rotations befroe you do those 2. So conflicted!

 

[GoSpursGo]

I don't think it really matters; chances are you won't get all of your choices anyways. FWIW, these are my thoughts (not all of which are compatible, so just think of them as pros/cons of different ways of doing things):

1) If you don't want to do surgery, you might want to just start with it. Get it over with, then even when you're on call on other rotations you can always say "at least my hours are still better than they were on surgery." Plus the surgery shelf is really a lot of medicine asked in a slightly different manner, so if you study as such you may do better on subsequent shelves.

2) Similarly, some of my friends really wanted to do medicine first because that gives you a good foundation for all of your other rotations. If you have an inkling of what you might want to do, trying to get medicine before that rotation would likely be a good idea (or if you want to do medicine, maybe try and do surgery beforehand).

3) If you've got an inkling of what you want to do, trying to put it somewhere in the early 2nd half of the year makes some sense, as you'll be able to do it with time to build connections that may lead to LORs, research, etc later, or change your mind if necessary.

4) Accept you're not going to get the schedule you want anyways and just suck it up

 

[image187]

I had medicine first and then surgery. Sometimes I wonder if I would have done better on the shelves if they weren't my first rotations. But then I realize that I would be too burnt out during those two if they were in the spring. My advice to you is to get them out of the way while you're still all energetic and excited. They give you a good foundation of knowledge for the other rotations (or so people say), and you can really appreciate the decreased time commitment required from other rotations like psych.

don't say this! I have ob and then surg to finish up the year... I'm going to be so burnt out lol

To the OP, I would say i dont think it really matters as long as the specialty you think you might want to go into you don't do first and don't do last. Other than that, i have to say I actually really appreciated having medicine first even though it was a little tough. you learn a lot of foundation and you'll have little trouble studying for other rotations afterwards. I think typicality everyone tries to get it first but if you don't it's not that big a deal

 

[joeDO2]

I think the general consensus seems to be that doing medicine towards the front gives a good foundation for the other rotations. I've also heard that doing surgery first can be difficult. Not sure how true either of these points are though. I'm guessing it probably doesn't matter all that much.

 

[ohyeahbaby]

you'll find people telling you that the sooner you take medicine, the better you're off because of the foundation it gives you.... and you'll find people telling you that the later you take medicine, the better off you'll be, because you'll be able to do better on your step 2, since not enough time would have passed for you to forget the info. It all boils down to your goals.

 

[Kaputt]

There is no magic order. Just don't do the specialty you're gunning for first because you will likely be unimpressive on your first rotation. Get acclimated to the clinical world on something you don't think you'll end up doing. For me, that was surgery.

 

[MilkmanAl]

If you're no surgeon, surgery first is a must. Get it done while you're still used to the long hours of Step 1 and so that everything else seems less awful by comparison. OB first or at least near the beginning is probably a good idea, too. Get that mess out of the way ASAP.

 

[secants]

I had IM first and it was great because all the pimp questions were mostly step 1 stuff and it really set the foundation for the rest of the year. I also had OB before Peds so it was cool delivering babies and then seeing kids afterwards. And I have FM last which hopefully will help for step 2 and be somewhat of a combination of everything I've learned from the other rotations. I think Neuro and Psych can be placed anywhere though. Btw if you're doing surgery I'd do OBGYN first so you can get some OR experience down.