Where to Do Rotations

[Fif the Great]

Hey guys (and gals). I just had a question about choosing where to do my 3rd and 4th year clinicals. At the school I attend we have the option of choosing another part of the state in which to do our clinical years, as opposed to simply remaining at the university based hospital(s). Since I know we're all list people, I'll list the pros and cons (of going to the different division) based on what I've gathered by talking to deans of both divisions as well as students.

Pros:
1. Faculty to student ratio is pretty high. In fact, with only 10 students going to the new division each year, I'm willing to bet that they have more faculty than students.
2. There are very few residents and 3rd/4th years to compete with for "learning" experiences. Most of the time, it's just you and the attending. There really isn't looking over the shoulders of others for e.g. surgery, so you're pretty much in the mix of things.
3. A lot of personal space. The university is building a brand new education center (a couple thousand square feet) at the site that will house a 200 seat auditorium and our own personal "office space." Our class would be the first to occupy it.
4. Most likely would get a good dean's letter for residency. I actually know the deans at the non-university site better than I do my deans at the university. Plus, a lot of one on one time since I wouldn't be competing with roughly 80 other students.
5. One of the hospitals is a VA hospital. While many of think this may not be exactly a good thing, I think it is (feel free to correct me).

Cons:
1. Not a lot of exposure to specialty medicine. Sure the basics are there, but fuggedabout neurosurgery, significant orthopaedics, and other highly specialized, umm... specialties. Those type of cases are usually referred to the main university hospital (about a two and a half hour drive).
2. Lots of self motivation/responsibility is required. Now while this may not be viewed as a con, you really can't have days where you just veg out and let the 10 residents and 5 other students take up your slack. You have to be up on your game every day.
3. Only a level 3 trauma center. Level 1 at the university hospital.
4. Peer support. I mean what, only 9 other med students there (19 if you count the 4th years)?
5. Transportation expense and time. The other division utilizes 3 different hospitals, located about 5-15 miles from one another.

Stuff that may be a pro or con:
1. The other division differs in their approach of the 3rd and 4th year versus the university hospital based approach.. Rather than have rotations broken up into discrete 8 week blocks, they utilize a longitudinal approach. We would spend a day (or two) a week in surgery, a day in OB, a day in family med, etc, over the course of approximately a 24 week period. Not sure if that is good or bad, I'm sure there are a few differing opinions out there.
2. It's viewed as a "community based approach" i.e. moving around every day to something new. They trump it up by saying residency programs look highly upon that type of approach since it will "better prepare you for the rigors of residency." I'm not too sure.
3. Not enough step 2 scores to draw a legitimate conclusion about this approach. We'll supposedly know more next year after the 3rd years from this year take step 2.

So please, any thoughts anyone may have on this would be greatly appreciated. Mainly I'm worried about getting into a specialty residency. I love family and internal medicine, but I don't want to do it for a living. My specific residencies of interest are anesthesiology and radiology. Of course, that all hinges on step 1 and 2 and my class rank. I honestly don't think I'd suffer either way I went, but just wanted some other objective opinions on it. I probably forgot some stuff, so if any of you have been through the same thing, feel free to add something on. Sorry this post is so long, but if you made it this far, I thank you for the effort.

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[quideam]

I was going to say that the new program seems great if you're interested in family medicine, primary-care type stuff. Since you're interested in rads/anesthesia, i think you should stick with the main program - you want something well-established, and most importantly, you want to train somewhere that has a lot of the specialties, etc., since that's what you want to do. Good luck - just my opinion .

 

[anamarylee]

The program sounds awesome for those who want primary care medicine. However, if shelf exams are required to pass each clerkship, I'm not sure the combined approach would work for me. It would be like studying for the boards twice.

From your situation in particular, I'd stick with the university center. Unless you want to be persuaded to join the dark side of primary care (Sorry, can't help but throw in some SW).

 

[Fif the Great]

Aww nuts. While I'm not against family medicine, I still would like to have my options open come match time for residencies. Oh and I guess I forgot to clarify that I am slated to go to the other division. I would have to find someone assigned to the university center to trade with me. Odd, I know. This is looking like I may have made a rookie mistake. Thanks for the feedback so far guys, I really appreciate different perspectives.

 

[anamarylee]

Aww nuts. While I'm not against family medicine, I still would like to have my options open come match time for residencies. Oh and I guess I forgot to clarify that I am slated to go to the other division. I would have to find someone assigned to the university center to trade with me. Odd, I know. This is looking like I may have made a rookie mistake. Thanks for the feedback so far guys, I really appreciate different perspectives.

Ohhh, that is another mater. As you mentioned before, the closer contact with the deans/attendings would work in your favor as well when match times comes around. Hope everything works out in the end.

 

[kcrd]

Go to the university hospital. I think some of your "pros" are actually cons. You'll find that you will get more teaching from residents than attendings, especially private attendings. On a few of my rotations at community hospitals, private attendings did not seem to view their role as an educator to the students - some to the point of just ignoring the students. This won't happen at the university center. You'll also learn a lot more from the specialists at the university hospital.

 

[Fif the Great]

Hmm... maybe I should give this more thought. I hadn't really given much thought of the fact that residents do a lot of the teaching as well. I must admit, on our required physician shadowings about 75% of the time the attending physician just hands me off to a resident who I wind up shadowing. I'm not going to do anything rash, but what if I decide to change my mind (for kcrd, in case you missed my previous post, I am already slated to go the other division site, and I must trade with someone to stay at the university hospital) what are my options? There already is one person ahead of me who wants to switch from our division to the university hospital, and he's having a hard time finding someone to trade with. Ahh the predicaments of med school.

 

[Fif the Great]

I personally chose to go to Charleston, the beating heart of West Virginia. Also a potential rookie mistake. However I have endured four years in Morgantown for UG, plus the two upcoming for M1/2, so another two would surely be my downfall into dementia, psychosis, and general bitterness towards all things PRT, Mon County Police, parking tickets, etc etc. the list goes on and on for Motown. To be fair, I love this place (WVU) on football saturdays and during the summer when the Jersey shore kids head back to the Jersey shore...

That's no lie. I thought I was in heaven during spring break... no traffic, no lines out the door at Applebees, no waiting 15 games to play basketball at the rec, sheer bliss. Don't sweat the Charleston decision, if you decide to change it, I'm sure it won't be hard for you to. However, Eastern division poses a bit more of a problem.

 

[Fif the Great]

Wow... a lot more feedback since my post was moved.

 

[Fif the Great]

Uhh mods? Why was my roughly 10 post thread moved from the Allopathic forum to the end of a god awful 9 page thread? I understand moving it to the Clinical Rotations forum, but geez, to stick it at the end of a really long sticky post is kinda craaaazy. No one's going to read it.

 

[bigfrank]

If you think this is ridiculous, we have an 8-page sticky about books for the IM rotation.

 

[Winged Scapula]

Despite your complaints, I have received numerous emails and PMs from other users disgruntled about the same posts over and over and over, and having to wade through the forums for them. Apparently the search function is too difficult for most to use.

Posts are moved when they are placed either in the wrong forum or would be more appropriate in another forum. Therefore, your post about 3 and 4th year clinical rotations belongs in this forum which is relevant to both Allopathic and Osteopathic users and is geared towards those years.

I fail to understand why people would not see posts at the end of this thread, since it is clear from the forum that there is a new post and the user only need to click on the last page to see the new post. There is no reason to read through the entire thread unless one wishes to.

I have placed your thread in its own thread and moved it from the Order of Rotations thread where it didn't really belong (not because of the length of that thread).

These stickies are currently in evolution. It took me over 8 hours yesterday simply to create them and move the most recent relevant threads into them. Again, this action was taken due to numerous requests/complaints from your colleagues. I have no intention of leaving the threads in their current state; I would also like to see them shortened, but until I find time to:

a) read the threads in their entirety

b) delete duplicate threads or threads which do not contribute to the discussion at hand

and

c) tighten up the stickies so that only the most useful information is contained within,

they will stand as is.

If I sound a bit disgruntled myself, I am. It is not easy Moderating a forum and trying to please as many people as one can. All of us get rather tired at times of dealing with the constant complaints, regardless of what we do. If I had left the forums in their current state, I would have continued to receive complaints about that.

The point of the Stickies is to prevent people from asking the same questions over and over. If your question has already been dealt with, there should be no need to repost it. I cannot take responsibility for users either uninterested, too lazy or too ignorant to find new posts on subjects. if they are interested, they will find them. If no one responds to your post, please don't take it personally or assume its because no one can find it. If SDN Users are smart enough to make it through HS and college, and in some cases medical school and residency, they should be smart enough to find new posts on topics they wish to read about and/or contribute toward.

I trust that everyone understands the reasons behind my actions and the fact that these are in evolution. I have asked for a separate sub forum for these stickies so that they will not clog up the main page of the Clinical Rotations forum. Please feel free to PM me should you have any further questions or comments regarding this or any other SDN matter.

 

[Fif the Great]

Not to be argumentative, but many users come to these forums not to get answers to questions, but rather supply them. Thus I believe the best way to get answers to questions is to post it on a forum that users frequent. Once it's moved, it's not like they don't want to answer a particular question, but in fact the question is just "out of sight, out of mind." While it may seem simple to click on the last page of a particularly long thread, just seeing a thread that is roughly 10 pages long may seem cumbersome to some. Plus the fact that stickies are usually reserved (at least in my experience) for current events or general information such as rules and user agreements.

I understand this a completely free service and no where else can such a breadth of knowledge and experience of medical schools and like be found on the web. I'm sure I speak for all when I say thanks for your dedication to maintaining this website. Hopefully, with time, this forum will be able to appease all of us cranky future/present doctors.

 

[Winged Scapula]

I highly doubt I (or any of the Mods) will ever be able to appease ALL of the future and current physicians on this site. I'll settle for a small majority!

While I understand that as a user looking for answers it is tempting to post a thread in the most traveled forums. However, allowing users to post their threads in any forum when they are more appropriate in a different forum.just creates chaos.

10 page long Stickies are overwhelming to me too! I'm trying to edit them to something more reasonable. While they are commonly used for current events and announcements, the design is that they are to be used for commonly asked questions. I could put them into one sticky - a FAQ if you will - but we have so many it would soon become ridiculous.

I suppose the Mods have a different view on the forums; that is we assume people look at any of those of interest to them. Therefore, I assume that medical students peruse the Allo or Osteo Forums, Clinical Rotations, and on occasion, the Gen Res and Pre-Allo/Osteo forums. We are aware that there are users who only look at certain forums, but it is obvious from years of using this site, that there are a large number of users that look at many, if not all, of the clinical sites related to medical school. This forum gets a fair bit of traffic, and I believe your thread belongs here. However, if you feel very strongly about it, I will move it back to Allopathic (since I assume Osteo students don't read that forum, I also believe that issues of interest to both Allo/Osteo belong here if they are clinically oriented since we don't have a General Medical School forum).