Tips for choosing MS-III rotation order?

[Ruban]

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Hi all,
Next month, our class is having a lottery to choose the order of our MS-III rotations. Anyone have tips on how to order the rotations?

Thanks 🙂

 

[swedcrip]

The surgery national board exam is still very much a medicine exam. 5/6 groups at our school took IM directly before Surgery. The group that started the year on surgery had a higher failure rate on that test. The surgery clerkship probably won't teach you a whole lot of medicine and there's not a whole lot of time to study it.

Otherwise you might want to take what your interested in early if you're not 100% decided. If you really have to impress during your future specialty clerkship (surgery, high end applicatns for other stuff, rads/anesth/derm/etc - the more competitive specialties) then you might want to know how to write a note before taking an important clerkship. For us it was totally random but if you have a choice, think how prepared you'll be for each rotation your 1st month vs your 12 month. I think a lot of people cut you slack your first rotatoin or two, not much by the end, so it balances out. Also consider that a lot of people lost motivation around the mid-point of 3rd year and onwards.

 

[trouta]

I dont know that it much matters...

Ive heard the medicine before surgery b/c of the exam thing a couple of times so maybe that makes sense.

With regard to the rotation in your field of choice... Ive heard it both ways: take it early to make sure you like it, or take it late so you can excell.

I didnt get the exact schedule I wanted and I was all bent out of shape about that but it has turned out to matter very little.

 

[UNEOSTEO]

Doesn't really matter. Whatever yo want for residency, do it in the fall of 3rd yr. If you have an elective month in 3rd yr, set that sometime after x-mas... in case what you want isn't a core rotation

My 3rd yr was this and I was happy with it....easier rotations towards the end and stuff I wasn't too into so got time to study for Step II...

IM, Surgery, Elective, OB/GYN, Peds, Family Med, Psych


Good luck!

 

[KerleyB]

I am a little lazy sometimes, and I live in a damn cold state, so I selected the hard core call months as much in the dead of winter as possible. Family and elective at the end of the year, Psych/Neuro at the beginning. Worked out pretty well. I would echo the med before surg though if possible, but I would also say if you dont want surg do it EARLY - less expectations.

 

[ORS]

I think the order is not that important except mediccine before surgery.
My order was Psych, OB, Peds, Neuro, Ambulatory care, Medicine, EM, FM, Surgery. This way I got a cush rotation in the summer and alternated easy to hard rotations. Just my opinion 🙂