Residency Schedule - Considerations

[medssss2020]

Hi all, 

Hope everyone is staying safe this these crazy times.

I am a final year medical student, preparing to start residency in July. I have recently been asked by my residency program to rank my preferred order of my PGY1 rotations. Could anyone shed some light as to some of the considerations you had when ranking the order of the rotation blocks?

I figure that I'll have to do them all eventually, so honestly not sure what difference the order of completing the rotations could make. Are there considerations regarding scheduling vacation during certain blocks (e.g. CTU) or similar? FYI I have one elective block during my PGY1 year as well, with the rest being mandatory rotations. 

Thanks in advance for your input

[Hanmari]

I asked for my harder/busier/less interesting rotations (for me they were the same) to be first so that I could be excused for doing a bad job. Services are also generally less busy in the summers and rotation coordinators will be more accommodating to your vacation requests.

At my program the PGY1s could not take more than a week off per month during 1-month blocks. I never got the straight answer but got the impression it's a grey area in residency association rules that blanket restrictions on vacations aren't allowed unless the program thinks your clinical education would be compromised or whatever, some stupid loophole that in the end allows the program to pull off crap like that.

Now, given the current climate and the very real possibility of things being in emergency mode until late 2020, I would suggest leaving your elective block until later in your year to prevent it from being cancelled. Likewise doing non-core mandatory rotations (i.e. off-service) in the first few months runs the possibility of you being repurposed into emerg/ICU/other rotations more core to your specialty. Whether that's a bad thing is up to you to decide.

Lastly in my opinion there's no harm in scheduling vacation weeks in the early few months if that's what you'd like, given that you'll likely have time to reschedule within the same year of residency if they get cancelled. Just don't be making firm travel plans anytime soon.

[Wachaa]

I'm not sure if this applies to you, but I would suggest looking into when you're doing Rural rotations. Personally I find it better to do them when the weather is warmer. Rather than driving up north in an unknown place when it's snowing, -30C, or otherwise unable to enjoy outdoors activities.

If you're doing the more call-intensive rotations during the winter months then it's not as bad in my opinion.