Internal Medicine Elective- General or subspecialty?

[regular]

I'm currently interested in anesthesia and plan on using internal medicine as a backup. At UBC we're only limited to 12 weeks of electives and at the moment I'm planning on doing 8 weeks of Emerg and 4 weeks of internal. I would prefer to be at either UBC or in Alberta for my residency. I had 2 questions for people who went a similar route as I did:

 

1) is it better to do 4 weeks of General internal or split it into 2x2 at two different places? I understand it can be tough to see the attending enough to get a good reference, but it seems like getting more exposure is good as well.

 

2) To maximize my chances of having internal as a solid backup, is it better to do general internal medicine or choose a specialty? I was told that most internal program directors would know you better if you were in the CTU doing general IM.

[PlatinumIce]

I'm currently interested in anesthesia and plan on using internal medicine as a backup. At UBC we're only limited to 12 weeks of electives and at the moment I'm planning on doing 8 weeks of Emerg and 4 weeks of internal. I would prefer to be at either UBC or in Alberta for my residency. I had 2 questions for people who went a similar route as I did:

 

1) is it better to do 4 weeks of General internal or split it into 2x2 at two different places? I understand it can be tough to see the attending enough to get a good reference, but it seems like getting more exposure is good as well.

 

2) To maximize my chances of having internal as a solid backup, is it better to do general internal medicine or choose a specialty? I was told that most internal program directors would know you better if you were in the CTU doing general IM.

 

I'd suggest doing 2 weeks x 2 for your internal electives. 3 weeks is ideal for CTU but I think on my CTU electives (which were both 3 weeks) I could have got away with a decent letter after 2 weeks. The key is to be interested and make sure you let them know you're seriously considering IM as a career option

 

I'd also suggest doing at least one CTU elective. You might find that you'd get a better reference off a specialty elective (more face-time with the attending usually) but some schools with competitive internal programs seem to like students having done CTU electives there (I'm from Ontario and only applied in province so can't comment on UBC or U of A).

 

Hope that's somewhat helpful...