Stacking electives in one specialty

[gb35]

I've heard several people (some EM residents) say "don't do all your electives in one thing", they want well rounded applicants. I have, however, also heard that it's all about maximizing elective time in your desired specialty.

 

With that in mind, I am not sure whether I should be maxing out my EM elective time or planning a bit more broadly. My program doesn't get any clerkship electives until basically the beginning of October of 4th year. I am planning on doing all tertiary EM until Christmas, except for a 3 week block in family+Em, and a two week anesthesia elective, then four more weeks of emerg over Christmas/leading up to interviews, then a couple weeks of optho.

 

All told, that would be 9 weeks of tertiary EM, 2 weeks of Peds EM, 3 weeks of FM+EM, 2 weeks of anesthesia, and 2 weeks of optho or maybe ICU. Is that too much emerg? Would I still be reasonably competitive for family given that it will be sort of obvious where I'm leaning...

[rogerroger]

Disagree. If you want EM do emerg electives.

 

That well rounded stuff is more applicable to med school than residency apps. More face time with the programs is what matters. They will be ranking and interviewing you. The program will not care that you did an ortho elective etc. You will do an ortho rotation as an emerg resident... If you spread yourself thin enough with non-EM electives they may even question how committed you are the specialty.

 

If you are going 100% for EM, then get into the ER!

 

Regarding family... That family+EM elective will net you a ton of FM interviews if you are an average med student. I only did one 2 week rural FM+EM elective and applied to FM broadly as a backup, I netted more FM interviews than I could attend... I think most FM programs interview everyone that can fill out an application form.

[gb35]

Thanks for the advice!

[ellorie]

I am toying with this as well - we have 16 weeks of electives and can do 12 in one specialty. I'd like to do the max 12 in psych, and then maybe some family and emerg for the last 4 weeks. I don't want to look like I don't have other interests, but if I'm going to be applying broadly, I'd like to see as many programs as I can.

[Satsuma]

Agree, if you want emerg then you need to get our there and do emerg electives. You need face time with as many programs you can get if applying broadly. 2 weeks getting to know people in a program will do you more good than say, an ophtho elective. It gives a chance for people to see if they like you and also if you like the program.

 

When it comes to ranking it will be more important for people to say "yeah, I remember that med student, they worked really hard etc." rather than, "oh look, they did an ophtho elective, how well rounded".

 

So precarms, I would say do EM electives. Afterward though, do whatever you want! And it would be great to do electives in things that will help you in EM. eg. that ophtho elective - maybe you want to learn how to use that slit lamp really well before residency!

[rmorelan]

I am toying with this as well - we have 16 weeks of electives and can do 12 in one specialty. I'd like to do the max 12 in psych, and then maybe some family and emerg for the last 4 weeks. I don't want to look like I don't have other interests, but if I'm going to be applying broadly, I'd like to see as many programs as I can.

 

You know some (a minority I think) of programs really do like people to take a broad range of electives but that is rare. There isn't one single clear set of criteria for a field, some residency programs in the same specialty still want slightly different things.

 

Still overall I think the well rounded argument is really not something to be worried about. You want something go do most of your electives in it. Get skilled at it, and make as many places as possible aware of your existence