third year scheduling

[Premed Worrier]

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Does anyone have any advice on how to schedule for third year? I think I want to do EM and realize that I would want to do something before doing that rotation but have heard that you still want to do the rotation of interest towards the middle of third year. I don't really know. We don't get to choose individual rotation order rather from a choice of 6 or so preset blocks of rotation order. I was just curious as to what is the preferred way? Get surgery and medicine done before rotation of choice? One or the other? Which first? Stuff like that. Thanks for any advice.

 

[turkeyjerky]

This has been discussed quite a bit--general consensus is that it doesn't matter nearly as much as you think it does. For EM you prolly want to have done medicine, surgery, peds and obgyn first. I did ob first and that's worked out fine so far.

 

[CardiacIntensivist]

It really doesn't matter what order you do your rotations in. In your case, since you have those preset blocks, just choose the blocks which you think would be the easiest for you to adjust to. Do you like to be thrown in the mix or slowly build up your knowledge base? Also, it will be more high yield for you if you ask current 3rd and 4th years at your school for advise since they know the system and rotations.

I recommend not placing too much emphasis on what you think you might want to do. Except for the orthopods, most people in my class ultimately changed their minds. If you really are deadset on it, and want to do well on an EM elective, I recommend Internal medicine and family medicine. I don't think surgery is really that important. You'll just need to know if someone should go to the OR or not which is also a medicine concept.

 

[Cruzinman]

Try to schedule Medicine before Surgery. A lot of your surgical patients will have medical illnesses that also need addressing, and you will can hell get big time brownie points on surgery rotation if you can help manage the medical problems, since the objective of the surgery block is not to teach you surgical skills. My dad was a surgeon, but will say that first and foremost a surgeon is an expert physiologist, has good IM knowledge, and maybe third down on the list has good hands.

 

[Perrotfish]

If possible I'd recommend scheduling Family after pretty much everything: OB, IM, Peds, and if possible even Surgery. My experience was that Family was an amazing review of everything and a terrible way to learn anything. Half-assing dozens of OB checkups because I hadn't had the rotation yet wasn't the high point of my FM rotation.

Ultimately, though, I'll agree that it makes less of a difference than you think it does.

 

[coldweatherblue]

I did medicine first, family last, with surgery split by christmas break. I love my schedule. Doing medicine first makes march of MS2 -> september of MS3 really busy since you go straight from step 1 to IM, but I think it's the best.. third-year is one of those things you just have to dive into and beginning your year with inpatient medicine is a great way to start it off. Having two weeks of vacation in between surgery is pretty amazing too (christmas is the only time off we have third-year, so I'm very thankful for it!).

 

[Jolie South]

I really think it makes little difference how you schedule rotations. I agree though that family should be last pretty much.

I scheduled all the stuff I thought I would hate first (surgery, OB, neuro) and ended up being surprised at how much I like those things (except neuro). So, I'd say that scheduling according to what you think you want to do is out the window.

One bit of advice that I do have is to get the hard, long-houred rotations out of the way first. Even if you're gung-ho medicine or surgery, I would not do either last because they're both killers. I'm so tired of pretending to care about specialties that I'm not interested in and I'm really not willing to go the extra mile for the good grade anymore.

 

[cpants]

If you have a good lotto number, I would recommend trying to trade it so that you have the best possible lotto number to select fourth year rotations. Despite what you think right now, your 3rd year elective order matters not at all. You will be much happier, and much better situated for residency apps if you can get your first choices first half of fourth year.

 

[NJDIF]

Do medicine early, and before surgery. Knowing internal medicine will set you up with a foundation for all of your other rotations, and it comes in handy especially on the surgery shelf (go figure).

Do family medicine as late as possible. There's a little bit of everything in FM (IM, surgery, ob/gyn, peds, neuro). Having done all of those will make FM much easier.

 

[C5toC9]

Some people have said that doing IM first is best because you are most fresh from Step 1 and will appear to know a lot of medicine. Farther you are from Step 1, the more you forget. Thoughts?

 

[Beamer128]

Some people have said that doing IM first is best because you are most fresh from Step 1 and will appear to know a lot of medicine. Farther you are from Step 1, the more you forget. Thoughts?

I started this year off with medicine...going into the year I thought it would suck because I wanted a "cupcake" rotation to kind of ease my way into things. Having gone through it, definitely a good decision - everything you learn in medicine will help you with every other rotation. The only drawback was I didn't get to do too many procedures (thoracentesis, paracentesis, etc.) because the interns had to get their quotas in.