Split rotations during 3rd year

[ooh a bean]

Hi,

I am currently an M2, and my school recently announced that for our third year that they would be having us do "split" rotations. For example, for our Internal Medicine rotation, we will be doing 4 weeks before winter break and the remaining 4 weeks after winter break. We will be doing these "split" rotations for the majority of our rotations with the exception of Neurology and Emergency Medicine. As I have never heard of any other MD or DO schools having this kind of M3 curriculum, I had a few questions that could hopefully be answered here.

1. Are there any other schools in the US that have this kind of third year curriculum?
2. Are there advantages to having this curriculum?
3. Are there disadvantages to having this curriculum (And yes I'm already aware of a bunch but would like to know more from people who have already been on rotations and would hopefully have more insight)
4. Is splitting rotations "worth" it?

Edit:
perhaps I wasn’t clear. We wouldn’t be having breaks every four weeks. We would have the first half of our internal medicine, ob/gyn, psychiatry, family medicine, surgery rotations, etc before winter break and the second half of each rotation after winter break.

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[kb1900]

So you get a break/vacation every 4 weeks? Sounds great

q3-4 call for 6-8 weeks straight sucked during medicine

 

[ciestar]

A split for IM means tons of time to study for the shelf.

 

[ooh a bean]

So you get a break/vacation every 4 weeks? Sounds great

q3-4 call for 6-8 weeks straight sucked during medicine

perhaps I wasn’t clear. We wouldn’t be having breaks every four weeks. We would have the first half of our internal medicine, ob/gyn, psychiatry, family medicine, surgery rotations, etc before winter break and the second half of each rotation after winter break.

 

[Dr. Death]

Sounds like only disadvantages to me. Not sure why they would do this

 

[kb1900]

perhaps I wasn’t clear. We wouldn’t be having breaks every four weeks. We would have the first half of our internal medicine, ob/gyn, psychiatry, family medicine, surgery rotations, etc before winter break and the second half of each rotation after winter break.

Gotcha. Sounds largely like a change for the sake of change and something to spin as a “progressive curriculum” while being inconvenient at best

 

[Welshman]

Sounds like it’s designed to give you the perspective of having “done” all your rotations before you take their shelves/ get your final evaluations. I think this would be the Only advantage though

 

[takeurmeds02]

Hi,

I am currently an M2, and my school recently announced that for our third year that they would be having us do "split" rotations. For example, for our Internal Medicine rotation, we will be doing 4 weeks before winter break and the remaining 4 weeks after winter break. We will be doing these "split" rotations for the majority of our rotations with the exception of Neurology and Emergency Medicine. As I have never heard of any other MD or DO schools having this kind of M3 curriculum, I had a few questions that could hopefully be answered here.

1. Are there any other schools in the US that have this kind of third year curriculum?
2. Are there advantages to having this curriculum?
3. Are there disadvantages to having this curriculum (And yes I'm already aware of a bunch but would like to know more from people who have already been on rotations and would hopefully have more insight)
4. Is splitting rotations "worth" it?

Edit:
perhaps I wasn’t clear. We wouldn’t be having breaks every four weeks. We would have the first half of our internal medicine, ob/gyn, psychiatry, family medicine, surgery rotations, etc before winter break and the second half of each rotation after winter break.

Yea, one of our neighboring schools does that

 

[ooh a bean]

Yea, one of our neighboring schools does that

Could I PM you for which school does it?

 

[watermelon master]

honestly why do you care so much about this? you can't change anything about it and you do not know what life would have been like had you done the traditional rotation, so why spend time worrying about this?

 

[ooh a bean]

honestly why do you care so much about this? you can't change anything about it and you do not know what life would have been like had you done the traditional rotation, so why spend time worrying about this?

you can't change anything about this post and you do not know what life would have been like had you not read this post, so why spend time worrying about this?

 

[mrwhich]

honestly why do you care so much about this? you can't change anything about it and you do not know what life would have been like had you done the traditional rotation, so why spend time worrying about this?

At a normal school that line of thinking would in fact be correct. Students have little power in making drastic changes to something such as clinical rotation schedules/framework. As the first class at a new school the student body does in fact have enough power to make major changes to something such as this if enough time and energy goes into it. We worry about it because it can critically impact our 3rd and 4th year. As the schedule stands here students will have to jam all their shelf exams into the latter portion of the clinical rotations all the while studying for STEP 2. So these things matter.

 

[Barfbag112]

damn dude, who **** in your coffee this morning

honestly why do you care so much that you had to comment? you can't change anything about this post and you do not know what life would have been like had you not read this post, so why spend time worrying about this?

Alpha Male

 

[watermelon master]

At a normal school that line of thinking would in fact be correct. Students have little power in making drastic changes to something such as clinical rotation schedules/framework. As the first class at a new school the student body does in fact have enough power to make major changes to something such as this if enough time and energy goes into it. We worry about it because it can critically impact our 3rd and 4th year. As the schedule stands here students will have to jam all their shelf exams into the latter portion of the clinical rotations all the while studying for STEP 2. So these things matter.

Studying for shelves is studying for step 2. I see this style of rotations being beneficial since you've already seen the material once and you don't have to worry about the shelf the first time around, which means you can immerse yourself in actually focusing on getting good evals and learning from the rotation itself.

 

[mrwhich]

Studying for shelves is studying for step 2. I see this style of rotations being beneficial since you've already seen the material once and you don't have to worry about the shelf the first time around, which means you can immerse yourself in actually focusing on getting good evals and learning from the rotation itself.

You could be right, it may be beneficial. Or it may not. I guess we'll find out.

 

[Ho0v-man]

A shelf every two weeks sounds like hell

 

[IMGASMD]

Never mind.

 

[NotAProgDirector]

There are a few schools that do this. Some programs have a longitudinal integrated curriculum where there aren't specific clerkships, but all training stretches over 6-12 months. As a program, we don't care at all.

 

[sunshinefl]

Current M3. We have this at my core site. (Not at all sites at my school. The site makes the schedules). I wasn’t pleased when I got my rotation schedule and my specialty X 1 and 2 were spread so far apart.

Pros: 1. it spreads the specialties throughout the year, hopefully keeping everything fresh for step/level 2

Cons: 1. it seems like in the minds of the wards/preceptor we should be 6 months advanced with their specialty from the first time they saw us as though we haven’t been doing other things in between. 2. There’s a big gap in being immersed in the material—may hurt comat/shelf scores.

 

[ooh a bean]

Current M3. We have this at my core site. (Not at all sites at my school. The site makes the schedules). I wasn’t pleased when I got my rotation schedule and my specialty X 1 and 2 were spread so far apart.

Pros: 1. it spreads the specialties throughout the year, hopefully keeping everything fresh for step/level 2

Cons: 1. it seems like in the minds of the wards/preceptor we should be 6 months advanced with their specialty from the first time they saw us as though we haven’t been doing other things in between. 2. There’s a big gap in being immersed in the material—may hurt comat/shelf scores.

Thanks for the reply!

Do you have happen any insight on whether or not this set-up affected the quality of your or others students's LORs?

 

[sunshinefl]

Thanks for the reply!

Do you have happen any insight on whether or not this set-up affected the quality of your or others students's LORs?

So far, seems like no for myself or others.

 

[mrwhich]

Little update here, turns out all our rotations (minus EM and neuro) will be split. Our semesters are split into 2 quarters. In the spring semester of 3rd year, we will stop for one week to take our shelf exams, once in mid spring and once early June. What this means is twice our spring semester we will stop and take 4 shelf exams at a time.

Also, if anyone has experienced anything like this or have heard of any schools doing this please let us know what you think. Would love to hear some educators and their opinions as well, good or bad.