Mr Sparkle Registered User Posts: 1 (5/16/01 11:27:28 am) Reply Number of Away Rotations I am currently scheduled for 3 four-week ortho sub-internships and an additional four weeks at my home school. Is this too many? Is it frowned upon to do this many orthopaedic rotations? How many away rotations do most applicants arrange? Any advice here, would be greatly appreciated. Ortho2002 Registered User Posts: 16 (5/16/01 12:59:05 pm) Reply Same here. I think it depends on how strong of an applicant you are. I personally have three aways and one with my home institution, all in ortho. I just wanted to get a flavor of a bunch of different systems to figure out what I really like and to know what to look for on interviews. 2/3 of the aways are at places that are reaching for the stars, but I figure, what the hell?! Stranger things have happened! So, to answer your question, if you are set on ortho and feel that you need to get your face seen at a bunch of places, do whatever it takes! I would like to hear anyone else's opinion on this one also. OrthoStud Registered User Posts: 13 (5/16/01 1:57:11 pm) Reply rotations I'm doing 3 ortho electives ...1 home, 2 away. Others in my class are doing up to 6...I think they're crazy. Not because I feel confident, but because I think I would be burnt out after 3 months of working like an animal. Just my thoughts. Orthomatched Registered User Posts: 2 (5/16/01 6:39:47 pm) Reply Re: Number of Away Rotations Three externships in orthopaedics--in addition to your home rotation--seems like an awful lot, especially if they are all 4 weeks long. On the interview trail, I only met one medical student who did three externships (maybe other students weren't willing to admit that they did). Have some confidence! One externship is enough to get a "flavor" of how other programs differ from your home school. Two externships is more than enough, I think. I do NOT recommend doing externships that are only two weeks. Do you want to show the program that you're serious about them or not? Two weeks is not enough time to show your stuff. OrthoDoc ezOP Posts: 47 (5/16/01 7:41:28 pm) Reply Community Supporter Away rotations If you are not a stellar candidate, then 3 away rotations plus a home rotation may be what you need to get your foot in the door at a program somewhere. However, that is alot of time in orthopedics. You will be spending a little over four years devoted to orthopedics during residency. I would suggest spending some of your elective time in areas that can be useful to you down the road like infectious disease, rheumatology, radiology, surgical intensive care, etc... slk Registered User Posts: 29 (5/16/01 11:24:34 pm) Reply Re: Number of Away Rotations I did 3 aways after my home, and thought it worked out pretty well. I talked to people who said they did rotations and found the program sucked, or they didn't really click with the residents, and they were more or less wasted. i had the option to do it at my school, so I figured why not.. they were more fun than doing anything else, and the more you do, the more programs you have the extra "in" at. I ended up ranking them 1-2-3, and matched at one that I rotated at. mmrtjrajr Registered User Posts: 2 (5/17/01 3:39:49 pm) Reply Away Rotations Away rotations are not a necessity to getting a great residency spot. After much debate, I did not do any away rotations, still got 11 interviews and matched at my No. 1 choice. I don't necessarily recommend this approach, but I did want to actually take advantage of my last year of medical school to learn as much as possible outside of Ortho, including Radiology, SICU, Plastics, Trauma Surg, Peds Surg, and Infectious Disease. Also, I have three small kids and did not want to be away from home that long. The bottom line-don't assume that an away will guarantee you a spot, work your butt off during fourth year rotations, great letters can make a huge difference, and try to have fun during the whole process. It'll be over before you know it. Mr Sparkle Registered User Posts: 2 (5/17/01 5:31:42 pm) Reply Re: Away Rotations Congrats! Matching at your No. 1 pick (for that matter, matching period)is a great accomplishment. As far as not doing any away rotations goes, you were probably a stellar applicant. Let me guess: AOA, 250 Step 1, honored every rotation in the third year, tons of research and publications. Am I right? My situation is different. I sure as hell ain't AOA. First two years performance was pretty average. Decent Step 1. Mostly high passes with a couple of honors in the third year. About 6 weeks of non-productive research. If you were sitting in my shoes, and didn't have 3 kids at home, would you do away rotations? Let me know what you think. bonehead Registered User Posts: 3 (5/18/01 5:30:03 am) Reply Re: Number of Away Rotations Hmmm . . . good arguments on all sides. But here's a new one: I'm not doing away rotations, partly because of you all (no offense). Spending a month in a strange hospital, with other students gunning for the same spots, really turns me off. I'd rather stay on home turf and get kick-ass letters from the folks I already know, including the chairman. Besides, the secret truth is that most spots go to students who did NOT rotate at their matched place (either do the math, or just ask an RD); that excludes, of course, home-school favoritism. The top students are going to match where they want, regardless of where they rotate. The rest of us mortals pick up what's left, and thus we might as well stay home and get great letters, which will go far at ANY place. Thoughts? Ortho2002 Registered User Posts: 17 (5/18/01 6:36:14 am) Reply aways I still think that if you have even a minor connection, you should work that to your advantage. I honestly don't think that I will match at any of my three aways. However, it seems like the more people you know, the better off you are. For instance, even though I may not 'click' with any of the programs where I am doing aways, it is almost certain that at other interviews these rotations will come up. Here is where the good ol boy network kicks into play. "Oh, I see that you rotated with Dr. X, (laughing), I had a good time with him during my training". You have then made an instant connection and thus become a 'known' entity. Anyone else have thoughts? g2001 Registered User Posts: 6 (5/18/01 9:17:43 am) Reply Away rotations I recommend doing at least one away rotation just to see how other places run their residency. You can pick a program that's not too far away and put in a solid month and maybe pick up another strong ortho letter of rec(non-ortho letters mean very little.) It is tough going to a new hospital and trying to impress people in the month that you're there but it may get you an advantage over other applicants. You will be someone they know and worked with rather than just another applicant they spent 10-15 minutes interviewing. For what it's worth, I matched at my No. 1 choice at a program I did not rotate at, so it is not a necessity. Good luck. g2001 Registered User Posts: 7 (5/18/01 9:22:24 am) Reply Away One more thing. I think 3 aways is too much. You will be pretty bored after a while because you're going to be doing most of the retracting and scut and it gets tiring after a while. I would do a month of something non-ortho, take advantage of other electives like SICU, ER, Radiology or Trauma. But do what you think is best for YOU, in the end it's your butt on the line.Later. TR1 Registered User Posts: 16 (5/18/01 12:08:48 pm) Reply Aways I did 3 aways in addition to one home. I wrestled with all the issues presented in the previous posts. In short, I could not have had a better experience. Living in different parts of the country and meeting/scrubbing in with all the "legendary" attendings was an opportunity that I will never forget. And the workload was not that difficult. I did all 3 aways at "reach" programs, and matched at one of them. I received phone calls from each chairman and was "guaranteed" spots at each program. There is no way that I would have matched there if I did not do an away rotation, and I was considered to be a "strong" applicant by traditional standards. In addition, it was great learning how the top hospitals operate. All 5 of the "top 10 programs" (see previous posts) where I interviewed take roughly 75% of the new class from 4th year rotators at their program. In short, each strategy has it's benefits. But I have had a nice, relaxing and effective 4th year. Best of luck to all. Bonebuster Registered User Posts: 9 (5/18/01 8:49:09 pm) Reply Re: Number of Away Rotations Three away rotations in addition to one home rotation is in my opinion way too much. When I applied, the chairman at my medical school told us that whenever he sees applicants with more than a total of three ortho rotations he views them as suspect. It draws attention to your application indicating that you do not have confidence in yourself as an applicant. That tells residency directors a VERY strong message about you. Also, they want applicants who are interesting, not people who just spent their whole fourth year rotating in ortho. I personally did two aways and one at my home program. I matched at one of my away institutions, my No. 1 choice. So there is no doubt that away rotations make a difference, but too many will raise questions. Mr Sparkle Registered User Posts: 3 (5/20/01 12:15:58 am) Reply Re: Bonebuster, did you have a third-year rotation in Ortho or does your school only offer Ortho in the fourth-year? slk Registered User Posts: 30 (5/20/01 6:03:32 pm) Reply Re: Number of Away Rotations And one MORE thing.. I as well rotated at three reaches and matched at one of them.. One of the letters I got from one of the places, which the attending let me see before I left was real nice, so I sent it every program. I got a many comments on it, but one interviewer said, "Your home letters are good, but usually attendings want to pump up students from their own program. This letter from a guy who only had a month to get to know you, has no reason not to be objective, and said THIS means a lot more." Along the same lines, I've heard more than once that home chairmen letters carry the least weight, because chairmen rarely write luke warm letters for their own students. Puddy Registered User Posts: 7 (5/20/01 7:51:09 pm) Reply Re: Number of Away Rotations Dudes - and dudettes, I presume - what medical schools do you all go to that allows a 4th year curriculum of 4 or even 6 (6?!!!) rotations in orthopaedics? I'm allowed to do 2 months of ortho (or any surgical specialty for that matter) and if I want to do a third, I need to use one of the scheduled off months (interviews, boards, etc.) to do an extra month in something non-ortho. This even includes a month of ortho research if you want to get credit for it. I'm not saying I agree with the system at my school, and you can perhaps sense my slight envy, but anything more than three months seems excessive to me also. Then again, every program states how important it is to do a month there if you're serious about getting a spot there. Herein lies the dilemma, my neurotic friends. For what it's worth, I did decide to do one "home" and one away month. OrthoStud Registered User Posts: 15 (5/20/01 9:37:58 pm) Reply Beat this dead horse... Yes...my school has a similar policy to limit the number of Ortho rotations. But there are ways around it here, and some of my classmates have quite an impressive sphincter tone...you can do 1 home ortho, 2 away orthos....but we have 2 vacation months...and can use those as aways if you choose...if you do 2 week away rotations...that adds up. The ones whose sphincter tone is not conducive to having bowel movements do 2 weeks during Christmas vacation. Bonebuster Registered User Posts: 10 (5/21/01 12:34:52 am) Reply Re: Re: Mr Sparkle, In my school can do ortho in your elective block if u choose to. Many don't do this since their elective block ends up being early on in the year or before their surgery rotation. I ended up doing ortho the very last rotation in my third year, and then doing two aways in my first two block in fourth year. Hope that helps. BB bonepain Registered User Posts: 18 (5/22/01 9:26:34 pm) Reply I am too lazy You know, I have been hearing about this away rotation stuff also. I don't think I am going to do one, mainly because I am too lazy to get all the paperwork together. Man, what a pain in the ass. I suppose it is in my best interest to do so, however. eggghead Registered User Posts: 1 (6/12/01 10:37:23 am) Reply open doors I think those of you who are rationalizing not doing aways are not only lazy, but afraid. Yeah sure, aways are hard, stressful, and a little scary, but if you think you are capable of doing ortho then you better have the energy and nutsack to get off you ass, go somewhere new, and do something tough. If you weigh all the risks and benefits, its crazy not to do aways esp if you are a normal candidate (meaning score below 250 and not junior kiss ass AOA). Aways will get you interviews at those programs that would normally throw your app in the trash. There seems to be a randomness in terms of who gets interviews where. So even if you are a really strong candidate, you could get interviews almost everywhere except the one or two you were really interested in. Doing the away guarantees youlll get that interview unless you really do something wrong or your personality sucks. All this BS about 3 rotations being excessive and how it looks to chairmen never came up this yyr at one interview i went to or heard of. Every person I know (from my school and others I met on interviews) who matched at a really strong program or got their 1st choice, did aways at that place. Be brave and good luck.