Planning ahead for 2012-2013

[Random Anesthesiologist]

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Hello all,

I'm currently an MS3 and have anesthesia at the top of my specialty interest list. My school has asked us to start thinking about what rotations we'd like to do next year, which has me thinking about how I can work my unique scheduling issues into maximizing my chances for anesthesia rotations for residency apps.

I took the last half of the fall semester off this year because of pregnancy complications and to have my baby, which means I will have to tack on my IM rotation in the summer, from July - late September (around September 23).

I will have the opportunity to do a 2-week M4 anesthesia elective at home in between the Spring/Summer semesters, even though it's out of sync. My school is awesome at working with weird schedules - while I was on bedrest instead of doing IM, my school allowed me to do an 8-week M4 research selective for an independent project I'd started in M1, so I would still be in overall hours "sync" with my class and graduate on time, and still be able to have some time for residency interviews when they pop up.

My biggest concern is fitting in an away rotation or two (we're only allowed 8 weeks of specialty-dedicated rotations, leaving me 6 weeks after a 2-hour home rotation between semesters) and being able to get a letter(s) for ERAS and having it in with enough time for programs to offer interviews. I would be free to do aways starting Sept. 24.

Any thoughts or comments in general or on how programs would see this, or for scheduling advice?

 

[michigangirl]

Sounds like your school has done a great job with accomodating the schedule-- that is awesome. My first question is what your reasons are for doing aways-- as has come up in many other threads, there's usually only a few reasons to do aways in anesthesia-- because you have a specific location restriction or there is a dream program that you feel is a "reach" when you're evaluated on paper and you want to have a chance to get an interview in there. Also, and I am speaking from a new mom perspective, is the away going to be conducive to you being close to baby (i.e., do you have family in the area, etc.).

IF you have a good reason for doing an away, doing aways August-December is fine-- I did all my aways in October and November-- for the specific programs I did the aways, I didn't submit the letter to ERAS. I met with the program director during the away and asked the faculty (two at each) I was working with to send a personal letter directly to the program director's office once I was sure they were happy with how I had done. So a letter in November got me an interview in December.

There's a few ways of doing this, but I think August is fine-- you are doing an away so you can get a letter from that institution that can be used for that specific program, correct? I am assuming this because you said you have a home anesthesia elective, so you don't need an away to get anesthesia experience.

Good luck, and congrats on the baby!

 

[Random Anesthesiologist]

Thank you for responding!

We do have an anesthesia rotation built into our surgical clerkship, and I really enjoyed it. Much, much more than I thought I would, which lead me to consider it as my number one interest.

My school emphasizes aways to help with our residency marketability - both to explore programs we're interested in and to get perspective (and a letter) from outside our home program. So, we're encouraged to do at least one away rotation in whatever field we end up interested in pursuing for residency, and I'm looking for an extra letter to help me shine. I'm a very "average" candidate when it comes to grades and board scores, but I feel the rest of me (work experience, extracurriculars, etc) has a lot to offer a program. I'm hoping an away would help demonstrate that.

My family support is pretty good. The only downside in that respect for an away would be the emotional part of being away from my spouse and little guy, but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. Thank God for Skype.

Your thoughts have put me at ease a little bit considering the nature of med school exposure to anesthesia in general. It seems I might be on the lucky end by having an actual M3 rotation and being able to expand on that in M4. I've already discussed an M4 rotation with my M3 anesthesia preceptor and he's pretty excited about getting me in on some great surgeries and procedures (transplants, peds, high-risk OB, pain, etc). I think overall, I'm just nervous because I'm NOT a 240+, AOA candidate 😱..... 😳