PGY-4 year and program policy regarding boards...

[dwil75]

To residents (and those recently done with residency) with regard to taking the AP/CP boards... do your programs typically allow you some "lighter" rotations toward the end of your fourth year in order to provide a window for additional study (obviously, hopefully, most people are studying for an extended period far beyond this... but I am talking about the last few months before graduation, when most PGY-4's take the boards).

I ask because one of the directors at my program has recently appeared to decide that it is not unreasonable to keep seniors, even those who have completely fulfilled their AP rotation requirements, on the toughest rotations with the longest hours even up to May or June of their PGY-4 year... even when a trade for earlier months is easily possible and there are plenty of more junior residents who still need to fulfill AP requirements... anyone care to venture an option or share experiences regarding this policy; did anyone else find this issue to be of concern in their residency? (I'm PGY-1 and always assumed programs would support their seniors for boards because high pass rates reflect well on the program... but maybe I am naive...)

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[exPCM]

To residents (and those recently done with residency) with regard to taking the AP/CP boards... do your programs typically allow you some "lighter" rotations toward the end of your fourth year in order to provide a window for additional study (obviously, hopefully, most people are studying for an extended period far beyond this... but I am talking about the last few months before graduation, when most PGY-4's take the boards).

I ask because one of the directors at my program has recently appeared to decide that it is not unreasonable to keep seniors, even those who have completely fulfilled their AP rotation requirements, on the toughest rotations with the longest hours even up to May or June of their PGY-4 year... even when a trade for earlier months is easily possible and there are plenty of more junior residents who still need to fulfill AP requirements... anyone care to venture an option or share experiences regarding this policy; did anyone else find this issue to be of concern in their residency? (I'm PGY-1 and always assumed programs would support their seniors for boards because high pass rates reflect well on the program... but maybe I am naive...)

Any reasonable and humane program will let a senior take easy rotations so that they can study towards the end of their residency program. This is significant as pathology is one of the few specialties where you take the boards prior to finishing residency. Your program director is being downright malignant as illustrated by this arbitrary rule change for the seniors. IMHO your program director is a complete a**hole. I have heard of other programs with policies like you describe but fortunately they represent a minority of the programs. Good luck.

 

[green mantis]

My residency usually gave us lighter rotations at the end of 4th year. However, I'm not sure how useful they were. Many of the residents didn't actually take their boards in June. Since a fair number of them were planning on doing SP fellowship, they wound up waiting, either until October or the following summer.


----- Antony

 

[yaah]

The above point is true - in our program, there were 6 of us eligible, only 3 took the boards this year. Another fellow who was eligible did not take them, instead waiting until the end of fellowship #2.

I agree programs should not be scheduling you on critical rotations in either may or june, as your boards date (which you won't know until march or so) could be at almost any time during the last 6 weeks. Here, we have flexibility, most people get electives from april through june, some march through june, although people can schedule stuff on their own in those months.

 

[dwil75]

Thanks for taking time to answer...

To my knowledge, both seniors this year have felllowships and both are required to take the boards before they can start in July.

It just seems harsh to me, and without particular purpose, to put them on the longest, toughest rotations in those last few months. I wondered if it was the norm in other programs to do this to seniors, and I'm getting the idea it's not...

 

[yaah]

Required to take the boards before starting fellowship? That's one I have never heard before. I would recommend to everyone that they do that, but I'm not sure I would require it. That's a little heavy handed.

 

[Patrick O]

IMHO your program director is a complete a**hole. I have heard of other programs with policies like you describe but fortunately they represent a minority of the programs. Good luck.

I agree, complete BS. Your PD sounds like a jacka**. I feel for you.

 

[DrBloodmoney]

Well, if your programs pass rate tanks for a few years in a row - maybe they'll reconsider.

Our program gave us 2 months of "CP reading time". I was thankful for every second of it.

 

[Pingu]

I agree, complete BS. Your PD sounds like a jacka**. I feel for you.

I'm seconding this statement. This just sounds ridiculous. We are scheduled for light clinical rotations and electives for the second half of our fourth year. Board passage rate is very important to any program so what your program director is doing makes no sense at all. I would suggest presenting a united front to your program director and if you get no response, escalating it to the chairman. You don't want to waste 2k+ on taking the boards if you don't feel adequately prepared due to scheduling shenanigans.

 

[dwil75]

I'm seconding this statement. This just sounds ridiculous. We are scheduled for light clinical rotations and electives for the second half of our fourth year. Board passage rate is very important to any program so what your program director is doing makes no sense at all. I would suggest presenting a united front to your program director and if you get no response, escalating it to the chairman. You don't want to waste 2k+ on taking the boards if you don't feel adequately prepared due to scheduling shenanigans.

Thanks for the advice. This sounds like a good idea; I'll suggest it to the affected seniors. I know a lot of the residents in my program have been upset about it. No one wants to think this will happen to them in a few years. I hope this particular director (he's vice chair, our primary PD is on vacation until next week) becomes more reasonable, or that the PD will over-rule him. It seems awful to subject fourth years to a risk of failing over this, and if other programs are providing their seniors a cushion of lighter rotations or electives for study time prior to boards, it will hurt our seniors not to have this. Aside from being unfair to them, it will not make our program look good and may make recruitment for the match more difficult in upcoming years. Junior residents resentful of this unreasonable, illogical policy may share it with prospective applicants... and I think it would scare them, as it scares all of us.

 

[CameronFrye]

Our schedules are set up by the chief residents, who also happen to be the ones taking boards, so it's not an issue here. Also, we don't do any surg path our 4th year, so that eliminates the tougest rotation anyway.

 

[Patrick O]

No surg path for an entire year?? wow

 

[CameronFrye]

No surg path for an entire year?? wow

Well, our 4th year is 6 months AP and 6 months CP. Most of the AP time is spent covering Consults and elective rotations (and maybe one month of forensics if you haven't gotten it done yet). 4th year AP residents also have to interpret after hours frozens. However, you spend no time on the general surg path rotation (in other words, no grossing and no late preview nights).

 

[cytoborg]

Yeah ouch, flexibility is important when it comes to boards. It seems like the 4th years should get priority scheduling and it sounds like there's nothing stopping the PD from doing this. I'd definitely 2nd the advice to take it up with your program.