Peds Intern schedule. What order do I do it in?

[punMD]

I realize that, much like the order of M3 rotations, intern year in pediatrics will be similar no matter how you slice and dice it....

I also realize there will be significant variation between programs...

HOWEVER... I dont have any specific life events to schedule my vacation and Im not sure what schedule preferences to submit. Any recommendations?

How should I start the year? Newborn nursery to ease into intern year and build a patient panel in my continuity clinic? Wards to dive right in? NICU to get it over with ASAP (im definitely not a NICU person)?

Should step 3 impact my preferences? Whens the optimal time to take that?

What other questions should I be asking?

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[MEN2C]

Optimal time to take step 3? Yesterday. Do it as soon as you can and get it out of the way. Best decision I made.

Otherwise, it doesn’t matter. If you can I’d spread out your more time consuming rotations out (and which ones those might be vary program by program), that way you don’t get stuck with five months straight of inpatient stuff.

 

[GoSpursGo]

By luck of the draw I started with newborn nursery, wards, and then two other outpatient rotations. This set me up nicely to get step 3 out of the way, but the rest of the year was pretty brutal. My co-residents hit the ground running and had some lighter stuff at the end, but still were studying for step 3 and had to remember a bunch of adult nonsense that they'd forgotten. There's pluses and minuses to however you set it up.

Two things I would say:
1) If you're considering a specific fellowship, or a couple of fellowships, try to get that in early to decide if it's really for you. It's less important now that almost all fellowship matches have moved to 3rd year, but it's nice to start making connections at your home program and potentially think about research if that's a thing for your fellowship.
2) Doing step 3 prior to residency seems like something that's been on the rise since I matched. I never really considered it, but if you don't do it before residency I do like getting it out of the way early. I don't think I learned anything in intern year that was remotely helpful for step 3.

 

[mvenus929]

I couldn’t afford Step 3 until later in the year, so I took in February. It was fine. You should definitely get it out of the way by the end of intern year, though.

If your clinic is anything like mine was, it won’t really matter when you do newborn nursery because the babies will stop following up with you very quickly once mom goes back to work. Then it’s all about availability and only having clinic one half day per week isn’t very conducive to that.

I’d recommend taking a vacation in January or February. It will do wonders for your mental health. I also recommend trying to do general outpatient pediatrics relatively soon so you can get the flow of visits down.

 

[BabyDoc86]

Doesn't matter. Depending on your program, some rotations may be required in intern year (my program had everyone doing Pulm as a particular wards subspecialty month), where some where dedicated to second year (Cards). If there is a particular subspecialty your'e considering for fellowship, preference that one if available. I worked my ass off intern year and took Step 3 in PGY2. No one cares about Step 3, but your program may dictation when you can take it (some require it to be taken prior to January of intern year; my program makes you pass it prior to PGY3). I recommend spreading out your vacation so you can have multiple breaks for your mental health.

 

[settingqt31]

I would say just try to space out your vacation. I had ED first which was nice then outpatient, nursery, NICU, etc. Didn't have my first wards month (of 4) until December so I felt a little nervous going into that month since all the other interns with me had had 1-2 months of it already but it was totally fine.

There was a rule in my state of residency that you couldn't do Step 3 til 6 months into intern year (I think that's been changed) but I didn't take Step 3 til May and it was fine.