Small Hands on Community Hospital or Large Teaching Hospital for Core Rotations

[HopefulDoc1984]

Our school has a mix of smaller community hospitals (100-150 beds) that allow more hands on experience but they also have a couple larger (500 bed) hospitals that are more teaching based. Which is better for core rotations?

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[45408]

which core rotations? I'd rather do general surgery at a community hospital, but I'd rather do colorectal surgery at an academic center. For peds, I'd rather be at a big children's hospital. For family medicine, go ahead and take the community hospital.

 

[cpants]

Our school has a mix of smaller community hospitals (100-150 beds) that allow more hands on experience but they also have a couple larger (500 bed) hospitals that are more teaching based. Which is better for core rotations?

Why do you think the smaller community hospitals will offer more hands on experience? In my experience, size of hospital is not really correlated to how much you get to do, and if it is at all, the larger teaching hospital will usually have the larger indigent population that is more willing to let students treat them.

 

[GQMO16]

i was also interested in the answer to this question...im at an osteopathic school adn for third year we can go to a larger teaching hospital where they have residents and interns and a lot of medical students or we can go to a smaller hospital where they have no residents and less students there os you get mroe one on one time with the attending....is it more advantageous to be in the smaller community hospitals and get this 1 on1 time or is it better to be in the larger teaching hospitals where you are put into a team with residents and other med studnets under an attending

(hopefully this is where the OP was headed and im not hijacking the thread)

 

[J1515]

Depends what field you're interested in.

If you are interested in surgery and think it's cool, go to a larger university hospital for that rotation where you'll get to see Whipples, Roux en y's, CEAs, coronary bypass, etc... If you have no interest in surgery and just want to learn the basics really well, pick the smaller hospital as you'll get more one on one experience with the attendings. Same goes for psych and ob/gyn.

 

[HopefulDoc1984]

i was also interested in the answer to this question...im at an osteopathic school adn for third year we can go to a larger teaching hospital where they have residents and interns and a lot of medical students or we can go to a smaller hospital where they have no residents and less students there os you get mroe one on one time with the attending....is it more advantageous to be in the smaller community hospitals and get this 1 on1 time or is it better to be in the larger teaching hospitals where you are put into a team with residents and other med studnets under an attending

(hopefully this is where the OP was headed and im not hijacking the thread)

This was bascially my question. We have a couple of smaller hospitals where you get to do tones of stuff such as first assist in surgeries, putting in central lines, deliverying babies on your own, full H&Ps............ The problem with these places is that they dont really have residents or didactics. We also have bigger hospitals where you get those didactics and interactions with the residents but much less actual hands on experience. Our cores last six months (2 internal med, 1 peds, 1 psych, 1 surgery and 1 ob-gyn) and then we can go wherever we want for our remaining electives and "audition" rotations.

 

[jonb12997]

Just my opinion... Smaller communities hospitals are good because you're going to get a lot of one on one teaching by the attendings. I definitely think it should be somewhere that has at least a smaller FP or IM residency because you still need some sort of lectures to keep you grounded. A bigger academic hospital is going to be better at teaching you how to really go about formal rounds with residents and attendings and fellows and such. That was one disadvantage I found to not being at a large teaching hospital during 3rd year that when I hit my Sub-I in 4th year it was really the first time I actually was forced to present on the fly during rounds and it was a rough go at first... However, I loved my 3rd year site because I got to do a TON of stuff that I wouldn't have otherwise been able to do, such as first assists on surgeries, delivering babies myself (obviously with Midwives or attendings close by), doing circs, etc...

Just my two cents...