Elective volume now isn't as big of an issue as you'd think. If the program was fine last year, it probably still is. Elective is picking back up again. I probably did 6-8 cases just this last month or two that we'd written up back last winter and then had to put on hold... plus the new ones keep rolling in. The deformities don't heal themselves, and ppl always keep getting injured/infected. Personally, I feel the elective (bunions, ankle instab, planus, fusions, plastics stuff, etc) is the most demanding in terms of expectaions/cosmesis/trust/legal risk, so I totally appreciate the concern about getting enough in PGYs.
...This is why I passed on interviewing at a few programs that had dynamite attendings, research/text galore... but triple scrub on most cases, though. You never know when crazy stuff will happen (key attending leaves or gets hurt, hospital/program politics lose a facility, program adds spots and dilutes numbers, you have to miss time during PGY, pandemic nonsense, etc etc etc). You always want a huge surplus of case numbers if you can find it. Besides eeeking by to graduation, it just helps you for skill, confidence, and privileges after. Gotta take the training wheels off early 🙂