Two years off between M3 and M4 ok?

[SanDiegoSOD]

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Hi,
I'm a 4th year MD/MBA student (I've done three years of med school and am now on a business school year), and I plan to match in EM. I'm considering taking next year off of the MD/MBA program to study foreign health care systems in Europe, with a focus on international emergency medical services. This will essentially extend the time from the end of my third year of medical school to the start of fourth year to about 20 months. I believe that taking a year to study and publish on this topic would be a great use of my time and will positively affect my career in medicine and health policy. However, I'm concerned that program directors will look negatively upon this extended absence from medical school and that they may question my commitment to clinical medicine (some docs question this simply because I'm MD/MBA; who knows what they think if I take another year). The dean and my faculty adviser are supportive of the idea but don't have much to say on how this will affect my chance of matching.
Any thoughts? Will another year off weigh negatively on my residency application? Thanks in advance.

 

[wobit]

Can you sit and chat with an EM PD? I imagine there are programs that will look negatively on it, exactly as you described, but that there are others that are more interested in training docs that are dedicated to facets of EM that aren't clinical (teaching, research, and even public health policy).

You would need to ensure that when you return to the hospital for your M4 you hit it hard from July on to interviews and prove that you still have your clinical groove after your time away.

I'm on track to finish school in 6 years + 2 maternity leaves, which is a parallel on the other side of typical, and the advice to me was to ensure that I had continuous, demonstrated commitment to EM and proven ability to shine for a few months in a row, after returning to clinicals and before interviews. As long as those were both solidly there, I was told my extra experiences would be a plus for the right program.