Picking third year rotation track

[Jalby]

Hey guys, I was wondering if I could get some help. Jan 21st I have to turn in a rank list for clinical rotations, but I have no idea which ones I should do. I was wondering if I could get some advice on which order might be helpfull and why?? Thank you very much.

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[ckent]

What do you think that you want to go into? That's probably the most important thing to know. You don't have to be 100% sure about it, but most people have some inkling if they are destined to pursue a surgical versus medicinal versus a non-clinical (rads, path) route.

 

[Starflyr]

Well, based on my experience, Id say take medicine, if not first, at least in the first semester. Why, you ask? Because ALL of your shelf exams will be medicine-based and if you dont know medicine, you will not do as well.

Of course, having medicine last is good, to, since you can then just take Step II...but...hey... I have medicine last, and I WISH I'd had it first.

OH, and if you want to do Peds, take it in winter. If you dont, DO NOT take peds in the winter.

Star

 

[kcrd]

I agree with starflyr. Knowing a little bit of medicine helps with all of your shelf tests. Also, taking medicine early, you'll be very good at general h&p's and soap notes, which can only help you in your other rotations.

 

[DOtobe]

Choice #4 is the closest to the schedule I have for my third year (mine goes Psych --> FP --> Medicine --> Surgery --> Ob/Gyn --> Peds) and so far I am really happy with the order in which I have had my rotations. It is good to start off with something less intense like psych, when you are just going into rotations. It is good to have medicine early because you learn EVERYTHING during that rotation. I'm in surgery now (four weeks down, two more to go), and the only drawback of having surgery around the holidays is that the case load is smaller, because nobody wants to have surgery around the holidays. So if you want to do surgery, you may want to take that into consideration. What you want to do is really important, because I wouldn't want to have a rotation in which I really wanted to impress my attending (and possibly get a good LOR) at the very beginning.

 

[Jalby]

Thanks a lot guys. I never considered the medicine at the front being good thing. The only thing that I thought of is doing something you know you want near the midddle or end. Thanks again.

 

[Daiphon]

i agree with what's been said so far... medicine is very useful for dealing with the other shelf exams... at the very least, however, you should have medicine before surgery... the surgery shelf is really nothing more than medicine part deux... i just took the surg shelf a few days ago, and myself & my classmates walked out of the test asking "where was the surgery?"

other than that, take the clerkship that relates to what you eventually want to go into sometime after you've taken at least 1-2 other clerkships (FP is good, as it is cake); that way, you get a good idea of how a hospital works before you try to impress the hell out of the docs you will need to write LoR's to your residency application.

just my $.02
-tim

 

[Whisker Barrel Cortex]

I have to disagree with most of the above posters and the current results of the poll a little bit. I think having in the first half is a good idea. However, having it first, in my opinion is not good. First off, you will just be getting used to the whole clinical medicine thing and will not be able to learn as much actual medicine. Second, it is much harder to get an honors or great reviews in your first rotation because you are so new. Although it would be nice if residents and attendings graded you based on your stage of training, they often have a hard time doing so. I'd go for medicine second. No matter what specialty you go into, they will look at your medicine grade!

 

[Blade28]

I was interested in Surgery, so I wanted that somewhere in the middle (not too early or I'd look like a fool, not too late or it'd be hard to get good letters of recommendation). I wanted Medicine early, so I would be able to get a good foundation in everything. I also wanted OB/GYN before Surgery, so I'd be able to learn (and practice) suturing, knot-tying, sterile technique, scrubbing, etc. I also wanted a nice break after surgery.

Here's what I ended up with (after a couple of trades with classmates):

Medicine
OB/GYN
Surgery (my current rotation)
Family Practice
Psych
Peds

 

[Jalby]

We actually have the same 24 people in each track and a certain % of those 24 get honors, so each person has the same background leading up to the rotation and the same chance of getting honors as later rotations. But I'm sure the later rotation people would get better letters of req b/c they know more.

 

[dchristismi]

I did medicine first. Very tough, and I worked my tail off. Heck, I spent the first 2 weeks just trying to write a good medicine note. I learned an obscene amount, and I'm amazed how much soaked in and stayed put. You're going to have to take a "first inpatient" rotation eventually, and learn all the background stuff anyway. Choose your own poison, I guess.

Still, I'm very glad I did it that way - I just took the surgery shelf, and would agree with the prior poster that it's all medicine. Definitely take medicine before surgery if at all possible.

Danielle

 

[ecpiii]

I was not TOTALLY sure about the future, but was leaning toward surgery or peds at the start of the year. This is how I lined up:

OB/GYN
Medicine
Surgery
Xmas break
Peds
FP
Psych

At my school, this is "front-loading", or putting the most time/labor intensive rotations first, and it was a grind, but it feels great now on xmas break. OB/GYN was its own field, so you don't need any previous clinical experience, and there was some minor surgery and lots of good times at births. Medicine helped me immensely for surgery, and I had more time on surgery to study surgical decision making, indications for operations, operative technique, tons of time to review anatomy/approaches, rather than learning how to medically manage surgical patients. In other words, I had more time to practicing thinking like surgeons think because I already had a firm hold on medical principles from the previous rotation.

Can't give advice on how my last three choices panned out, as I have not had them yet, but they are more of the fun/happy/crazy people times, so I am sure they will be easier going than the first three.

To sum up, I agree with above posters that "MEDICINE 1st, but not the absolute 1st" is the way to go.

 

[Jalby]

Just so you guys know, it looks like I will be turning in my rank list like this: 5, 4, 2, 3, 6, 7, 1

Thanks for all the help.

 

[Asher]

I think at most schools the most tiring rotations are medicine, surgery, and ob/gyn so it might be helpful to space those out with rotations that tend to have better schedules.

 

[souljah1]

Jalby,

I'd pick number 4.

We have to do this kind of stuff pretty soon for we start rotations in April. We pick the order and location so our match is incredibly complicated. I'm not too sure how it works. We don't have seven options to choose from. We pick our order any which way and along with it rank the location of where we want to do certain rotations (most rotations are at the VA, SFHG, and Moffit).

Pretty exciting to think how close we are to hitting the wards. I'm pretty much looking forward to getting less theory and more practice.

Best of luck on boards and what not.

 

[Jalby]

Thanks SoulJah. It appears everybody wants #4 because the surges are split up. I might move it down the list to be sure I get my third at least. We shall see. My biggest thing is I want to have one of m best friends in my track, so I don't care if I get stuck with a bad one.

 

[Buck Strong]

medicine
surgery
psych
family
Obgyn
Peds

Man, i'm gonna be really hating the first 4 months of third year with medicine and surgery back to back, but oh well, bring the pain

 

[Jalby]

I actually probably will end up with track number seven. This is a ranking, and that is where my best friend in school wanted to be. Definately front loaded, but I like it that way.