Visiting Rotations??!!

[shindog]

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Well, I've started to research/schedule my third and fourth year rotations and have come across a very disturbing situation. At my school, I am allowed to do 8 elective rotations anywhere I want. As most med students know, you need to schedule your outside/visiting rotations either in the third year or early fourth year in order to get exposure, LORs, etc. before submitting ERAS.

Well, every program I have researched states that you have to be a 4th-year student to be eligible for a visiting rotation!

Like most schools, our third academic year begins July 1 after boards and ends July 1 the following year. That only leaves the months of July and August for outside rotations. Anything later than August almost guarantees no time for a LOR.

So how are students on this board scheduling outside rotations during their third year? Are these program websites bullshyting about the 4th-year requirement or am I just looking at the wrong schools?

This is very frustrating because I'd like to visit several other schools in several different specialties before August so I can decide on a specialty and get LORs. I just don't see how this is possible with these requirements?

Anyone have any advice or thoughts?

 

[angermanagement]

Yes, I too have come across this disturbing thought. We basically have to know what field we want to go to BEFORE we actually do a rotation in it. This is the only way to get LoR in the field you want to apply to. As pointed out, there are also only a few months in which to do this to meet deadlines, which also have to be planned out 2-3 months beforehand. So I have to know the direction I want to go in the middle of my third year without experiencing many different areas.

So what about this scenario - we plan what we think we want to do, do the rotations and find out we want to go in a different direction? It kind of hamstrings that population since they might have 0 LoR in that field. I too would like to see how people dealt with this.

 

[Winged Scapula]

While it is desirable to do your elective rotationsas early as possible, it is not quite true that anything later than August means no LOR. I think you can reasonably schedule a rotation into September and still be on the safe side - remember the earliest program deadlines are around November 1 (with a couple in mid October) and many programs will still invite you for interviews without all your LORs in.

As far as I know, the programs are pretty adamant about students being in their final year before coming for an elective rotation.

 

[Winged Scapula]

Originally posted by angermanagement
So what about this scenario - we plan what we think we want to do, do the rotations and find out we want to go in a different direction? It kind of hamstrings that population since they might have 0 LoR in that field. I too would like to see how people dealt with this.

Unfortunately, this is the downfall of American medical education IMHO, you are forced into making a decision about specialization much too early.

However, that's the way it is currently - most find that they are ok making a decision by the end of their 3rd year, even in fields they haven't rotated in (ie, you can't rotate in everything).

You can avoid the above scenario by making your LORs as non-specific as possible -ie, "Suzy Q rotated with us on Service X between the dates of.... and .... She did an excellent job blah blah blah and I'm sure she will succeed regardless of what field she chooses."

Your Dean's LOR can be more specific. If you can't decide, you can always do a prelim or Transitional year and take some more time to decide.

 

[supercut]

You can start to make some decisions in your 3rd year. For example, you can decide do you want something surgical vs something medical, even if you don't know exactly what. If you want a surgical specialty, but aren't sure what, one letter could concivably come from one of the general surgeons in your third year clerkship. Same for medicine. If you like anesthesia or rads, seems like having one letter from either your surgery or medicine clerkship would be applicable.

Surgical specialties often give you exposure to more than one attending, so you could concievably get more than one letter from a rotation.

Also you can sometimes get a letter from the chair of your desired specialty at your school without acutally having done a rotation with him/her. You'll have to have done an elective and done well, so he can ask others about your performance.

I went to a med school with LOTS of restrictions on electives...we only get a total of 3, we can only do 2 away and we can't do any before finishing the 3rd year stuff (which is excessively focused on primary care). Still, we had people match into nearly every specialty including derm, ortho, ent, ophtho.

Ask your current 4th year students how they are working out their letters.