rotations

In third year it's fairly predictable that you absolutely won't have a consistant 3 hours per week every week to devote to anything other than sleep. This is notoriously the hardest year you will have in med school, time-wise (particularly during surgery, medicine and OB rotations). You will not be working 9-5 during much of that year. 4th year may be more manageable as you can pick electives, but during part of the year you will be interviewing for residency spots, and if you are choosing to go into a long houred field you may be choosing harder electives.

 

Check out panda bear's blog on this. He gives a pretty good breakdown on each rotation and sub-rotation, as well as a bunch of other interesting and informative stuff. Basically though surgery and OB are the worst, stuff like psych and fam med are the best. While medical school is an intense environment that soaks up a lot of your time and energy, it's not like you're travelling to a different planet. You are able to do things that are important to you, whether it be keeping a pet, doing research, working out, even prn employment if you've got training in something like nursing. The time constraints during 3rd year are the tightest though.

One thing to keep in mind is that all of us have individual circumstances, and I would hesitate to commit firmly to something this far in advance. You may well come out of 2nd year with poor grades or a new child, something forcing you to reprioritize a bit.

 

It took me a little bit, but I think I found what the above poster was talking about...here's the link:

http://pandabearmd.com/blog/category/third-year/