your third year order

[naegleria brain]

there have been many posts on people deciding between two specific things. i want your general opinions. put down your order, and your rationale. doesn't have to be what you got, but i'd like to see what you wanted.
i'll start:

i'm interested in something surgical (neurosurgery/general/etc), with no interest in medicine, very involved with research, would like to continue it into third year.

1. internal medicine
reason: i heard many of the principles are repeated in the rest of your rotations. knowing this makes peds, fam med, and even surgery a little easier.

2. obgyn
reason: no interest in it, the internal med will help with some, but the OR experience will hopefully get rid of any OR jitters i may have for when surgery comes around

3. fam med
reason: at my school, generally pretty easy. also right before christmas break, so getting burnt out with break ahead won't kill me. also i can get some research in and carry it on at home while on break.

4. peds
reason: similar to fam med

5. surgery
reason: didn't want it at the very end where the end is in sight. also, i'd like an easy last rotation for some time to study for step II. its late enough however that i have clinical experience in the OR and presenting patients. i'd hope that i'm at my peak at this block and can really pull off a great job for a surgery recommendation

6. psych
reason: end on an easy class, allow step II study, maybe pump out a final research project, or simple case report

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[chicamedica]

there have been many posts on people deciding between two specific things. i want your general opinions. put down your order, and your rationale. doesn't have to be what you got, but i'd like to see what you wanted.
i'll start:

i'm interested in something surgical (neurosurgery/general/etc), with no interest in medicine, very involved with research, would like to continue it into third year.

1. internal medicine
reason: i heard many of the principles are repeated in the rest of your rotations. knowing this makes peds, fam med, and even surgery a little easier.

2. obgyn
reason: no interest in it, the internal med will help with some, but the OR experience will hopefully get rid of any OR jitters i may have for when surgery comes around

3. fam med
reason: at my school, generally pretty easy. also right before christmas break, so getting burnt out with break ahead won't kill me. also i can get some research in and carry it on at home while on break.

4. peds
reason: similar to fam med

5. surgery
reason: didn't want it at the very end where the end is in sight. also, i'd like an easy last rotation for some time to study for step II. its late enough however that i have clinical experience in the OR and presenting patients. i'd hope that i'm at my peak at this block and can really pull off a great job for a surgery recommendation

6. psych
reason: end on an easy class, allow step II study, maybe pump out a final research project, or simple case report

Sounds like a good plan. I also did IM first, and yes, while this was the least forgiving rotation to have first, it did seem that those of us who did it that block were functioning at a more advanced level compared to everyone else by the time we finished the rotation. However (and this might be a moot point for you since you're sure you're going surgical), when i did my medicine sub-i as a 4th year med student, and later as an intern, seeing my third year med students functioning at earlier vs later points in the year, i realized how much i actually didn't have a chance to experience during my MS3 rotation simply because i was devoting a lot of attention to learning the ropes of the clinical world in general at the very beginning of third year.


If i had to do things over again, i'd probably opt to do OB first, then maybe neuro/psych or fam med, then maybe med or surg, then something else easy, and then either surg or med. What i end with probably wouldn't be as huge of an issue (though yes i was somewhat burned out by my last rotation of MS3--and it was OB which is the only rotation i really dont enjoy). But honestly u can really tailor MS4 to whatever you please, so you can always take an easy month for your first rotation of MS4.

 

[hale-bopp]

I'm just starting medicine last. And I like having it now, I get the chance to pull everything together. And information I learned on other rotations is really useful in medicine, because it's often stuff more senior people have forgotten by this point. (facts I learned on surgery and OB were relevant today, for example, as was Neuro yesterday). Neuro's actually not a bad one to do early, if you have the option, because you can use it on almost every other rotation, and it's really hard to apply it before you start that rotation.
honestly, I really don't think it matters that much. I guess having surgery first meant I didn't really know how to put orders in, so I didn't really do much of that... but with medicine last, I'm not wasting a month trying to figure it out. (plus for us, Medicine includes 4 weeks of outpatient, which is apparently pretty much a joke, i.e 3 days a week, 9-5. which will be a nice break). I think if I had Family med at the end of the year, I would have wanted to die of boredom. But before peds, medicine, and OB, it was all new and exciting and I learned a TON). In general, people at my school seem to enjoy family med more if they have it first semester.

I guess what it comes down to is do you want to use medicine to synthesize everything and try to get to the sub-I level, or do you want to improve your background before getting into stuff you have learned less about (i.e. surgery, OB)?

 

[Mayhem]

That sounds like a good order. I originally wanted: IM, Cardiolody (IM selective), Peds, FM, Psych and last Surgery. That's because I was thinking of specializing in surgery and wanted to make sure I had it last so I was at least halfway competent by then. Plus I knew I'd hate IM and Peds so I wanted to get them out of the way early.

What I got was: Surgery, FM, Psych, Peds, IM then Neurology. I was pretty pissed about that because the whole year was basically a steady slide down into the **** pit. Plus I had to do Neuro instead of Cardio because of scheduling issues. It wasn't that bad though. Since I did Surgery first I was fresh and excited which helped me make a good impression. Then I had FM and Psych during the summer, which meant free time since the preceptors were mostly on vacation. Peds turned out to be just as annoying as I'd expected but I managed and when it came time for my final rotation I was glad I had IM & Neuro because I was too tired and worn out to even pretend to care about anything.

My advice, if you like something and are hoping to impress then earlier is better because:

1. When you get too close to the end you get really burnt out and you just want to finish at all costs.

2. The expectations are different as the year goes on. What I did to impress them at the start of the year would barely get a pass at the end of the year. For example, no one ever made a big deal out of the fact that I wasn't too great at physical exams but the later groups were expected to do much better.

BTW, you'll notice I still have ObGyn to do in 4th year, what joy?

 

[Pianoboe01]

Just got my 3rd year schedule today, and I'm not too happy about it:

First block
1. Pediatrics
2. Vacation or Elective -- (did not want vacation this early in the year, and there are very few electives I can pick from because of prereqs.. boo!)
3. Family Medicine

Second block (note: we have to do a "surgery block" -- 16 weeks of surgery back to back, which would not be my choice if we could do it some other way)
4. OBGYN
5. Surgical Subspecialty and Anesthesia
6. General Surgery

Third block
7. Psychiatry -- at least I have an "easy" rotation after surgery block
8. Neurology or Neurosurgery
9. Medicine -- absolutely did not want medicine last!!!

What I wanted and why:
First block
1. Psych -- I have no interest in the field, and I thought it would be a nice way to ease into 3rd year
2. Neuro
3. Medicine -- wanted to have this towards the beginning of the year since it's the basis of everything and I can learn a good physical exam early in the year, but not at the very beginning so I at least have some experience first, and definitely before surgery block

Second block -- I had no particular order here, but I definitely want to do something surgical so that's why I wanted (and received, thankfully) these in the second block
4. OB
5. Surgical subspecialty and anesth
6. General surg

Third block
7. Vacation month or elective -- vacation would definitely be nice after 16 weeks of surgery block
8. Family medicine -- easy way to end the year
9. Pediatrics -- no interest in peds