2 Wk Vs 4 Wk Electives In Em

[GrumpyMoriarty]

Hi Everyone, 

 

Pre-clerk here trying to plan early for clerkship next year. Mainly interested in Emergency Medicine.

 

Just wondering if anyone has input regarding 2 week vs 3 week vs 4 week electives at various academic emergency centers. My main worry is that unlike some other electives where one might get to work with 1-2 preceptors, staff rotate fairly frequently in any Emergency Department. Given that elective time is limited, I was wondering what would be the best use/balance of elective periods. 

 

ie I have a 8 week elective block, which I could do 2+2+2+2 or 3+3+2 or 4+4... I worry that if I do a 2 week elective I may not even see the same staff physician twice in a row, and hence procuring letters may be abit more difficult. On the other hand, If I only do 4 week electives, I may not be able to see as many sites and get acquainted with as many EM programs. 

 

If anyone has any tips/advice/pearls regarding this, please do not hesitate to let me know  

[hkmedic]

Some programs will try to slot you in with the same one or two staff physicians for the entire duration of your entire, while with other programs, it's completely random who you might get paired up with. ER staff know that that's how scheduling works, and it is not uncommon to ask for a reference letter after a few (around at least 3) shifts. Of course, this is assuming you had strong shifts with the staff person, and a good rapport with them. As well, your referee will often solicit feedback from other staff you've worked with, and collate an overall letter based on your elective at the site.

[hking03]

You can also try contacting the site directors and indicating your interest in emergency medicine to see if they can facilitate a schedule that has you working with the same doc a few times...

 

I would say your goals should be to do one in province Emerg elective, one out of province and then another one out of province on the other side of the country.

 

Also, do some anesthesia, ICU/CCU to round it out.

 

Emerg is crazy competitive. Like others have said previously. I have good friends who didn't score any interviews despite gunning hard. So, even though it pains me to say it... Back up with family. And by back up with family I mean, do a family elective and apply broadly because family is competitive AF too.

[mononoke]

Is a single family elective enough though? How many should one do?

[hking03]

Is a single family elective enough though? How many should one do?

It's tough to say... Family sites throughout Canada say "you don't have to do a family elective to get into family" but I wouldn't say that's wise.

 

At the very least doing a pre carms family elective is a start. And then having a post carms one also shows interest. If you want family medicine and only family then you can also do whatever electives you want... Because it's the last time you'll get to do ICU potentially or Nephro or Pathology or whatever you are interested in.

[F508]

Wouldn't a core family rotation be enough? At my school we have a mandatory 7 week block, I will not be doing any electives on top of this

[hking03]

Wouldn't a core family rotation be enough? At my school we have a mandatory 7 week block, I will not be doing any electives on top of this

It really depends...

 

If you want a competitive family residency program a lot of variables have to fall in place.

 

It's not a back up specialty anymore. I had a couple friends who were solid applicants go unmatched simply because they didn't apply broadly enough and they applied to multiple schools in multiple provinces.

 

I just feel like if you want to do a residency program in family you shouldn't rely on it being easy to get into because that's not the case anymore.

 

My school was a bit different... I arranged my third year family rotation to be at the end of the year so I got a strong letter from that. I then did another family elective pre carms and got a strong letter from that rotation. I had a few Emerg electives as well and used letters from those to round out my application. I also had a post carms family elective in a smaller community to show that I was portable and interested in family medicine.

 

At the end of the day my opinion is that one should do electives that make you a strong medical student, will prepare you for residency, will give you strong letters that you can use for carms, will give you experiences to talk about during interviews and are challenging/rewarding and also give you perspective on what you want your practice to look like in the future.

 

It's a long list, but if you pick electives using some of the above criteria you'll get solid experiences overall. At least, that's what I think anyways.

[F508]

I'm considering three specialties right now with one being family med... I feel like this is not a good idea going into Carms, too spread out hahah

[hking03]

I'm considering three specialties right now with one being family med... I feel like this is not a good idea going into Carms, too spread out hahah

Realistically 90% of applicants (guess) apply to two specialties. And at my school our student affairs department strongly encouraged everybody to apply to at least two specialties.

 

I had a few friends that applied to three, four or even five specialties... It really is a matter of getting electives in the specialties that you want and then getting interviews.

 

If you are gunning for uber competitive specialties they might not take your application seriously if you've got electives in multiple areas. However, if you are thinking about family, internal, gen surg, peds or something along those lines you can make it work and apply to all the specialties you want. The limiting factor will be which programs offer you interviews...