tooty Posted January 28, 2011 Report Share Posted January 28, 2011 So, clerkship is coming up. I'm likely going to start with a medicine rotation and I'm nervous about how I would perform around the wards. We have time between 2nd and 3rd year to do some electives/research etc. What is a good elective that I can do with this time that would prepare me for what I would see in a medicine rotation? The elective will serve to calm my nerves before hitting clerkship and it might even make me look better than my classmates around the wards. Unfortunately, I can't do a general internal medicine elective because they require a medicine core first. Some electives I'm thinking about are emerg, family, and ICU. I think emerg and family might be too far removed from the patients that would show up in medicine wards, so I'm leaning towards ICU. I pretty much have all possible electives to choose from. What do you guys think? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cardiomegaly Posted January 28, 2011 Report Share Posted January 28, 2011 I know you can't do an ICU elective till 4th year usually, you'll have to complete your internal rotation first. Plus, ICU electives are normally 3-4 week minimum otherwise you won't get anything out of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tooty Posted January 28, 2011 Author Report Share Posted January 28, 2011 I know you can't do an ICU elective till 4th year usually ty. fml. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmorelan Posted January 28, 2011 Report Share Posted January 28, 2011 I know you can't do an ICU elective till 4th year usually, you'll have to complete your internal rotation first. Plus, ICU electives are normally 3-4 week minimum otherwise you won't get anything out of it. Does it have to be a full elective though? I had the option of doing 4-6 weeks of ICU observerships last summer with full rounding etc. That seemed normal, and I might do that this summer actually as well. Sounded pretty close to being an observership to me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darla Posted January 28, 2011 Report Share Posted January 28, 2011 I did a geriatric elective at our local rehab hospital as my pre-clerkship elective. It was only 2 weeks long, but really made me feel confident when I hit the wards because I was taught how to do admissions, discharges, write orders, got used to rounding. It's fairly intense medicine so while not ICU, you will still see some pretty sick people and get exposure to many of the meds you will be using every day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lactic Folly Posted January 29, 2011 Report Share Posted January 29, 2011 Consider broadening the aim of your elective time to more than just preparing you for your first medicine rotation. How are you in terms of specialty selection/preparation? Electives scheduling can be difficult and you may have an easier time in the summer outside of the Sept-Nov pre-CARMS rush. Even if you just want to do well in clerkship, are there any specific areas you want to target - history taking, physical exam, note writing? I like emerg - though you won't have the continuing care and note-writing aspects of internal medicine, you will get plenty of practice in independently assessing patients and formulating plans, as well as get immediate one-on-one feedback (a big plus) and see some patients who will eventually be admitted to medicine. Urban family would offer a more relaxed environment to start talking to patients, but I agree it would be less applicable. Rural family, however, may well allow you to participate in managing inpatients as well as see multiple areas of the hospital. I agree with the above posters that geriatrics is the most similar to general medicine (if they allow you to do geriatrics before your core medicine), and that ICU may not be the best rotation for learning to assess patients and formulate plans as a medical student. However, you'd likely get a lot of practice in writing long notes! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A-Stark Posted January 29, 2011 Report Share Posted January 29, 2011 I'd suggest a two week radiology elective that could give you the basics for the wards ... like how to interpret a CXR or CT. You're almost certain to get asked by a resident/staff on what your approach is to reading one of these scans. Plus rads is usually chill and you'd be able to get some reading done ... unlike ICU. I did this and found it a waste of time. Occasionally a resident or staff would do a small amount of teaching, but it's all you can do sometimes to get them to talk much at all. It doesn't take two weeks to develop an approach to CXR or even CT, the latter of which depends as much on your prior anatomy knowledge as anything else. And you can't read in the dark! To OP: I'd say you'd learn a lot doing ICU, and depending on the type of ICU you might get a lot of exposure to surgical patients of one sort or another too. I don't think it would afford much independence, however - I'm currently weighing ICU vs geriatrics as a selective myself, and I'm not sure which would be more useful at this level. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DubZteR Posted January 29, 2011 Report Share Posted January 29, 2011 I did this and found it a waste of time. Occasionally a resident or staff would do a small amount of teaching, but it's all you can do sometimes to get them to talk much at all. It doesn't take two weeks to develop an approach to CXR or even CT, the latter of which depends as much on your prior anatomy knowledge as anything else. And you can't read in the dark! To OP: I'd say you'd learn a lot doing ICU, and depending on the type of ICU you might get a lot of exposure to surgical patients of one sort or another too. I don't think it would afford much independence, however - I'm currently weighing ICU vs geriatrics as a selective myself, and I'm not sure which would be more useful at this level. who says you have to stay in the dark room with them? lol .. definitely don't need 2 weeks to develop an approach to CXR/CT and you can get personalities that like to keep to themselves in rads but if that's the case, you can ask to work with the IR. They usually like to talk more and they're not always in a dark room Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A-Stark Posted January 29, 2011 Report Share Posted January 29, 2011 Well, they work in dark rooms. IR is okay, I guess, though outside of neurointerventional not especially captivating. And even then it's not like you really do anything apart from open sterile-prepped $10,000 catheters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tooty Posted January 29, 2011 Author Report Share Posted January 29, 2011 forgot about geriatrics! good choice too! lots of oldies on the ward + 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tooty Posted January 29, 2011 Author Report Share Posted January 29, 2011 thanks for the advice guys gonna think about this for a bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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