Rad Onc Away Rotation Impressions

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Sheldor

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So in the spirit of the extreme helpfulness of this board, I thought a thread like this could be a good idea. After scouring the archives, I see that a recurring request is for advice and experiences with away rotations. Each thread usually only gets a few replies before fading away.

So, without further ado, I see this thread a place where users can post anonymously about their experience with various away rotations. It is a rather large decision, and while there is some info in the interview impressions thread, I still feel like there isn't enough information on here. If everyone posted at least about their home institution, we'd have some thoughts on nearly every program in the country.

So for those who just matched, and everyone who went before, please share! Perhaps with the following format:

Institution:
Time spent: # weeks
Services: Breast, gyn, etc, etc?
Presentation: When, how long, well attended?
Research: How were the opportunities?
Role as a student: H and Ps? Contouring? Etc.
Impression: Like or didn't like? Would you recommend it to future applicants? Any other thoughts developed after 4 weeks.
Offered an interview: Yes?

I'm sure, as usual, our wonderful mod would be happy to post anonymously for those of you who'd rather do it that way. Hopefully this can be a valuable resource.

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This could be a very useful resource for M3's looking to do away rotations. One suggested addition is to include "Didactics for medical students: eg. Lectures (how many?, topic such as clinical, radbio, physics), contouring sessions, etc." Although it is common for students to give lectures, it is unfortunately much less common for departments to give lectures on the fundamentals of radiation oncology to their rotating students.
 
Sheldor,

I can only speak for my home program, but I think its a good one that visiting students seem to enjoy so here you go...

Institution: UNC
Time spent: # weeks: 4
Services: Pretty much all: breast, prostate, GU/gyn, Lung, h&n, sarcoma, GI, melanoma...all the major players and most have mulit D conferences and clinics each week though some are biweekly. I think that is a real strength of our program is most groups are truly integrated and you get to appreciate the comprehensive treatment of each cancer and the specific indications for radiation therapy by stage etc.
Presentation: Students give a 30 min presentation on a topic of their choice. Its really a review of the RCTs or other good data supporting a specific topic: ex the use of adjuvant RT in advanced prostate cancer.
Research: Great once you are here, but really none during a one month away.
Role as a student: Virtually all patient care. You are paired with a different attending each day and see all or most of their patients in clinic. A lot of time is spent in the multiD clinics doing H&Ps. You will get to do a little contouring and seeing treatment planning (maybe total of 1 or two work days) but the mentality is that they can teach most good students everything they need to know about rad onc in residency. Can't teach good patient skills. Also, they want to know how good you are at the things you have been trained to do. It is an audition after all.
Impression: I stayed on, so I think that says it all. Its very collegial and there are a ton of opportunities pretty much no matter what you are interested in. The people are great and we all know each other well and get along as well as anywhere else. A lot of us therapists, residents, and attendings play basketball together outside of work. Its also a great area to live in.
Offered an interview: Yes. and I think the majority of, if not all away rotation students did get interviews too.

Anyone interested in the south should certainly come check us out.
 
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Thank you so much Ramses, that is exactly what I had in mind for his thread and I learned a lot about UNC.

Hopefully yours will be the first of many!
 
I should preface this by disclosing that I am a resident at the Univ of Chicago. I did a rotation here in 2007. The general structure is the same with the addition of a didactic curriculum for students. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions about the rotation.

Institution: University of Chicago
Time spent: 4 weeks
Services: Students generally work on one service per week and are able to rotate with most of the attendings in the department, including the program director. Services include Head and Neck, Breast/CNS, Breast/Gyn/Lymphoma, GU/GI, and Thoracic/Peds.
Presentation: Students are not required to give a presentation to the department, although some students have volunteered in the past. Students meet with the chairman for an informal case presentation ~2 times during the 4 weeks.
Research: Some students have piggy-backed onto resident projects or worked independently with an attending and succeeded in presenting abstracts at ASCO and ASTRO. If you are interested in developing a research project, discuss it early in the rotation with the chief residents (or possibly beforehand).
Role as a student: Students prepare consults and take complete H+P’s, usually with resident supervision, and then present the case to the attending. With assistance from the resident, students are expected to have reviewed some basic literature (textbook, up-to-date, etc) pertaining to the disease site and have a basic treatment plan in mind. Students also have the opportunity to observe SRS, SBRT, and brachytherapy procedures. Students work closely with residents and often are given the opportunity to observe and possibly assist with contouring and plan evaluation. If students have downtime, they are encouraged to observe dosimetry, simulations, or treatments.
Didactics for students: Although these MS4 clerkships function as an audition rotation for potential residents, we believe that students need to learn the basics of radiation oncology to be able to make the most informed decision possible when choosing a specialty, and to have a basic foundation to function as a PGY-2 radiation oncology resident. With that in mind, we have developed a didactic curriculum that includes lectures on the history of radiation oncology, basic radbio and physics, and evidence-based rad onc, as well as a hands-on didactic dosimetry session.
Impression: The more you put in, the more you’ll get out of it.
Offered an interview: Yes (I’m a resident here now)
 
Here's an anonymous impression I was asked to post.

Institution: MSKCC

Time spent: # weeks: 4

Services: All are available, including breast, prostate, GU/gyn, Lung, H&N, sarcoma, GI, melanoma. The program admin contacts you several weeks before and asks what services and attendings you want, and does her best to give that to you. I got three of four I wanted, so she does a great job. You spend one week with a different attending who really only sees one disease site and on academic days you are free to join another service, including the chairman's, that does not already have another student - I often went to brachy cases with the brachy fellow on those days. You also attend all the conferences for the services you are on, including tumor boards, path conferences, etc and all resident didactics and grand rounds. There are no real med student specific didactics.

Presentation: Students give a 10 min presentation on a topic of their choice, usually an interesting patient with some interesting clinical question. Your audience is the entire resident staff, and all attendings are invited. Many attendings come, including the chair and PD unless they are away. It's quite impressive the focus on this presentation and the attendings will ask some legitimate questions during the Q&A.

Research: You should stay an extra month or two if you want to get something done, and it appears that many students stay on with an attending they rotated with. The opportunities are endless and the department is very productive, but it can be a busy rotation.

Role as a student: Virtually all patient care, doing H&Ps and follow ups. You can shadow the first consult, and then are free to do histories independently and present directly to the attending. The residents were good about giving you enough new consults to keep you busy, but not enough that you got slowed down in clinic or gave bogus patient presentations. Med students do not dictate, so you give your info to your resident who will dictate. The clinic workflow and nursing seemed phenomenal and the residents handle a lot of the work, so the attendings really paid attention to your presentations. Most of us were contouring at some point, and the resident, attending, and student often went to dosimetry together to check plans.

Impression: It's a busy clinic with high expectations, so you will work, learn a ton, and get really efficient. Rotating through four different services means you get broad exposure, from bread and butter T1c prostate, to some exotic peds tumor that requires an army of pathologists. The rotation was well structured and the atmosphere seemed a bit more formal with some of the senior faculty. Students can spend a day with Powell, who is a gem. The residents are a fun and collegial and social group, and the PGY2s I worked with especially made it a point to make the experience good for students with active teaching. One of the seniors is assigned as a med student liaison, and is there to handle any issues, help you navigate MSKCC resources and other departments, polish your presentation, and otherwise make you look good. This was a great idea. New York is a great city, but can be expensive. MSKCC as an institution is pretty phenomenal because your referring doc might be the president of ASCO or something crazy like that. There are one to two fellows and often rotating residents from other institutions, which is nice to get perspectives on other programs when you're there.

Offered an interview: Yes, but definitely not guaranteed. Two to three rotate per month, plus lots of students come for research. Getting an away there is done exclusively through the MSKCC GME office from my understanding, so you dont need to play games or be a stud on paper to get an away there from my n=1 anonymous experience, just turn in your stuff as early as allowed.
 
Does anyone have information about Penn away rotations?

Institution:penn
Time spent: # weeks
Services: Breast, gyn, etc, etc?
Presentation: When, how long, well attended?
Research: How were the opportunities?
Role as a student: H and Ps? Contouring? Etc.
Impression: Like or didn't like? Would you recommend it to future applicants? Any other thoughts developed after 4 weeks.
Offered an interview: Yes?
Number of medical students rotating at one time:
 
Does anyone have information about Penn away rotations?

Ask and ye shall receive . . . courtesy of this anonymous user.

Institution: Penn

Time spent: 4 weeks

Services: You're assigned to one resident who is covering one or two busy services for the month, though you are able to get a more varied experience if you ask for it.

Presentation: End of rotation presentation--I think it was a half hour. It was only attended by my resident and one of the two attendings. Apparently there used to be presentations in front of the department, but that was stopped a few years ago.

Research: I'm sure there were many opportunities. The resident I was with was very busy which kept me busy seeing patients and contouring all day (typical hours were about 8AM to 7PM if I recall correctly). I think you would have to have dedicated time to do research there as a medical student or resident.

Role as a student: H and Ps, contouring... Nothing out of the usual. A lot of normal structure contouring and H&P writing to help out my resident who was slammed.

Impression: I'm sure this post will end up with a rebuttal. Since it's a big name, big city program a lot of people want to go there and will post nothing but great things about the program.

But I had an average experience overall. My resident was unhappy, and the other residents had varying levels of happiness as well. They were cool people, don't get me wrong. It's just that the residents felt overwhelmed and annoyed with the always increasing number of patients and sims, the level of scut, and were worried that this would only get worse. This was all coming after the brutal internship, which in private conversation was absolutely hated by the junior residents. I remember reading in another thread someone posting that working Saturdays in the near future was an "urban legend". But, this was a serious concern being discussed by the residents while I was rotating there.

One attending I worked with completely ignored the medical students. He literally didn't want to speak to medical students and would ignore questions I asked him. He seemed even annoyed with interacting with the resident. The other attending was okay, though is known for giving mediocre letters of recommendation. In these respects the faculty are very mixed, and it is really luck of the draw as to who you will get if you rotate there. The personalities at Penn overall seem like an interesting mix. I'll never forget some of the tumor boards with attendings literally yelling at each other down the table over my head.

Like or didn't like? Would you recommend it to future applicants? Any other thoughts developed after 4 weeks.

I did like the lecture series. The lectures I had were well put together by faculty and were very informational. The cancer center is beautiful and in a nice location. You will likely get focused experience in one or two areas, probably ones that Penn are very good at.

Overall, I would not recommend this rotation unless you really want to be there. I suppose if prestige and location of program are paramount to you, and you don't mind being worked very hard throughout your residency, this could be a good place for you.

Offered an interview: Yes, though I was given only one date with little notice and had to turn it down due to conflicts with other interviews. No alternate date was given and without an official interview I could not be ranked.

Number of medical students rotating at one time: 4, but it's a big and busy enough department that it could handle many medical students without problem.
 
images


One does not simply critcize Penn radonc and think there will be no rebuttle...

I don't have one...never been, but people really are all over the map on this one.
 
Here is a 2nd opinion on Penn's Rad Onc rotation:

Institution: Penn

Time spent: 4 weeks

Services: Assigned to one service/attending/resident.

Presentation: 20 minutes or so. Presented in front of the attendings, residents, and students currently on the service.

Research: There if you seek it out. I found an extremely supportive attending and was able to get started on a project while there.

Role as a student: As much as you feel comfortable doing. I was able to do H&Ps, OTVs, followups, etc. The best part of being on a single service for the entire month is being able to really get a feel for every part of a patient's treatment and having real continuity that you don't really get at many other places. Being able to follow a new patient from consult to sim and on-treatment is pretty fantastic and makes you feel as if you're a part of the team.

Impression: I can't really speak to the intern year (although from friends doing IM there I hear it's pretty brutal) or the level of resident scut, but I had a fantastic experience on the rotation overall. I think the other poster's review just brings out the fact that the rotation is going to be variable depending on the service/attending you get assigned to. Some people will be better with med students than others but that's the case anywhere you go. My attending and I got along extremely well and it was my favorite radonc rotation of fourth year. If you're new to doing radonc rotations I think the ideal thing to do would be to schedule your first rotation at a place that gives you a broader overview of the field and to schedule Penn a bit later.

Offered an interview: Yes, but I was also only given one date like the previous poster.

Number of medical students rotating at one time: 4-5ish?
 
Heeeeeeeeere's Stanford!

Institution: Stanford University
Time spent: 4 weeks
Services: You're assigned to a different attending every day of the week, so you get to see just about everything once, and some things twice. There is some flexibility in the schedule because often times your assigned attending won't have any new consults on your day with them. The brachytherapy experience is pretty slim (residents go to a another hospital for a month sometime during residency for their brachy training), but there is some gyne brachy going on at Stanford itself, and I got to see a couple interesting intraoperative cases. The Thoracic and GI attendings are particularly impressive and do a lot of teaching, and the CyberKnife service is a great model of efficient clinical medicine. However, your clinical schedule as a student is so busy that there is next to zero time to learn/observe dosimetry, contouring, physics, treatment planning or even on-treatment visits. On the plus side, you get very efficient in clinic and learn a lot about that side of radiation oncology
Presentation: End of the rotation 10(ish) minute talk on a topic of your choosing which is specifically not related to research you have done (which is nice because it levels the playing field for those of us who haven't done a lot of research). The talk is very well attended by the department, and typically Iris Gibbs or Sarah Donaldson will ask you a question or two at the end.
Research: There might be some opportunities, but you're so busy in clinic during the actual rotation that you'd probably have to hang around for an extra month or two to get anything done.
Role as a student: 2-4 new consults a day plus as many follow-up visits as you can handle. The residents will also have you dictate. Its a lot work work but you get a very practical education, and there are plenty of opportunities to look like a rockstar/put-your-foot-in-your-mouth.
Didactics for students: Nothing really. The department has a few talks for residents during the week, but neither the students nor the residents had much time to attend, and people are frequently paged out to go to clinic.
Impression: Much like the previous poster who wrote about their away rotation at Penn, I had a very average experience. I think its probably normal for junior rad onc residents to feel overwhelmed, but its interesting when the more senior residents are grumbling about their training. Overall, the residents are very close, but there was definitely a "great, here we go again" kind of attitude from the majority of them about the work. The attendings themselves were very nice to the students in clinic, but a couple of times I got the impression that there is a lot which gets said behind closed doors.
Offered an interview: Yes, and things seemed split fairly evenly among the current residents in terms of who rotated at Stanford at a student, and who did not.
 
Yale!

Institution: Yale University

Time spent: 4 weeks

Services: There are about 7 "attending teams" that typically combine 2 attendings specializing in different subsites, i.e. CNS+breast, lung+gyn, head/neck+prostate, etc. Each resident is assigned to one attending team every 3 months, and each student is assigned to 1 resident per week (total of 4 residents and exposure to 8-10 attendings). Each week, you do whatever your resident does, whether it's clinic, simulations / contouring / treatment planning, tumor boards, or studying/hanging out. Residents and students go to clinic only 2-3 days/week since most attendings have only one clinic day/week at YNHH, given that they also attend without resident coverage at satellite hospitals. That being said, this structure is far from being rigid, and you can really build your experience however you like.

Role of students: H+Ps on 2-3 new consults per clinic day, presenting directly to the attending and dictating yourself (you can also edit your dictation a couple days later on the computer before you have your attending co-sign it). You can prepare for this the afternoon before by asking for the complete chart from the two wonderful staff members whose job it is to assemble records. Otherwise, you're really free to do whatever you want, including contouring, research, reading, hanging out with dosimetry/physics/therapists, etc.

Presentation: One 30-minute presentation before grand rounds towards the end of your rotation on anything you want (i.e. clinical case and review of a topic, or your own research). Typically attended by all the residents and several attendings. The residents make sure to strongly encourage attendings to show up whenever you're scheduled to speak.

Research: Tons of opportunities even in a month-long period, and it's definitely easy to continue this research even after you leave. Many students end up with one or more abstracts and/or manuscripts after rotating.

Didactics for students: One 1-on-1 informal lecture given by a chief resident introducing you to radiation oncology. Otherwise, you just go to the resident didactic sessions (weekly physics, biology, and clinical lectures on Thursday, which is a protected academic day for all residents, plus weekly chart rounds, weekly grand rounds, and 2-3x/wk resident-run journal clubs).

Impression: Incredibly student-friendly experience. This rotation provides an excellent introduction to the field in a supportive environment that is extremely conducive to teaching by both attendings and residents, since everyone gets along very well and every effort is made to minimize resident/student scutwork. You'll have the chance to work with nearly the whole department, and you can structure your rotation however you like to maximize your learning. The expectations are that you will be thorough and thoughtful in your patient interactions and presentations, that you learn about how RT fits into the grand scheme of clinical oncology, and that you are highly engaged and active in your learning.

Offered an interview: Yes, I believe most rotating students do.
 
This thread is incredible! Thank you so much to those who have contributed. Anyone have impressions to share regarding the University of Florida?
 
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I've already signed up for Emory and Cleveland Clinic aways... but any reviews would still be most helpful!

Thanks to all those who have already contributed!
 
If anyone has any insights about away rotations with WashU, I'd appreciate it!
 
If anyone has any insights about away rotations with WashU, I'd appreciate it!

Your plea was heard by an anonymous user.

Institution: WashU (a few years ago)
Time spent: 4 x1 week rotations in a row
Services: Any, all chosen with your input
Presentation: Two different thirty minute presentations at their noon conference, each on a patient with a brief relevant article summary. Honestly, mediocre attendance by faculty. Also, weekly meeting with the student course director where we each orally presented an interesting patient, gave a brief (~15 min) summary of research supporting the treatment course, and were lightly pimped. The chair ran one or two of these and all were laidback. Think these are higher pressure for the WashU students since they care more about their grade while you care more about a LOR from a big name you are actually on service with. Great practice runs for the longer, more formal department presentation.
Research: Good. The head and neck service has a particularly large clinical database to mine.
Role as a student: Get to see everything including f/u, h&ps, and otvs. Was allowed to dictate h&ps. Most residents were happy to let you contour for them. They made sure you got to morning and noon conference. Attended but did not present at tumor boards which were usually around 4 or 5 in the afternoon. Did not have to go to their suburb treatment center and also got at least an academic half day a week.
Impression: Liked. Everyone was friendly. The chair went out of his way to meet with each of us individually in his office during the rotation. He met with us again for a longer time if you requested a LOR from him as his service wasn’t big enough to have a student. Of note, their med school requires you to submit the results of a drug screen and MMR titers which was kinda a pain and not covered by my student health insurance. You can stay in their med student dorm on the medical campus for about $700 but this is arranged separately. It was convenient but was dingier than any of my college dorms. Going back to group bathrooms in my late 20s was not a pleasant regression.
Offered an interview: Yes
Number of medical students rotating at one time: 3
 
Do we have a list of programs that are notorious for not interviewing their visiting rotation students?
 
Here is another perspective on Beaumont from an anonymous user.


Institution: William Beaumont Hospital
Time spent: 4 weeks (2010)
Services: Students rotate with several faculty. I worked with 3 of the prominent faculty before they left as well as the program director.
Presentation: Rotators prepare a 1 hour talk for the residents and faculty on a topic of their choosing. Mine was well attended.
Research: I wasn't involved in any research projects there, but I imagine you could have gotten involved with them if you pushed for it.
Role as a student: Medical students handle H&Ps and follow-ups mainly. I worked with a different attending each day. I wasn't involved much in the planning aspects, but I observed a prostate brachy case and a gamma knife case.
Didactics: Students attend didactics with residents which are held in the conference room with a staff presiding. This was definitely a strength of the rotation/program. We were also encouraged to attend all tumor boards.
Impression: Not as great as I expected. Not that it was a bad experience, just sort of average. I felt that I learned a lot more on my rotation at my home institution. They have good equipment and case variety, but nothing particularly special. Being from the midwest originally and hearing about WBH growing up, I expected more. I'm glad I did the rotation to know that it wasn't the place for me. The prominent faculty that I worked with (that have now moved on) struck me as arrogant and were not particularly friendly. However, the program director was very nice and I enjoyed staffing patients with her. The residents were definitely the bright spot of the rotation for me. They were friendly and genuine and it's nice to have so many in the program.
Offered an interview: Yes. I believe all rotators are interviewed. I matched somewhere I ranked higher.
 
Do we have a list of programs that are notorious for not interviewing their visiting rotation students?

Notorious? Don't know of any off hand. Clearly, the big name programs like Penn, MSKCC, Anderson and MGH will get more away rotations than they have interview spots so there will be awayers that don't get interviews, but thats more of a numbers game than anything. I havn't heard of any mid-teir programs that regularly don't interview most of their aways.
 
I didn't get an interview at UChicago or Beaumont. Both wrote me fantastic letters, and the project at UC directly led to me getting a residency. But, I was steamed at the time!
-S
 
Institution: UCSF

Time spent: 4

Services: Like many of the big name programs, UCSF has everything you could ever want to see. The stereotactic and brachytherapy programs are incredibly strong, and I got to see a lot of pediatric cases as well. On the first day of my rotation I met with the Chief Resident and the other students (3 of us in total), and we came up with a loose schedule for the month based on our individual interests. However, that schedule got mixed up on a near-daily basis as the month progressed if the residents were doing something particularly interesting (head and neck brachytherapy, CNS implants, etc.) as opposed to seeing yet another T1c prostate. The entire experience was very laid back and entirely focused on student education.

Presentation: 30-minute talk on your research during the last week of the rotation. A few residents and faculty showed up, but the ones who did asked a lot of really good questions. There seemed to be a bias in favor of the basic science/translational talks (not surprising given that the vast majority of residents are MD/PhDs), but I'm basing that on a pretty small sample size.

Research: I didn't investigate this as a rotating student.

Role as a student: I spent most of my time working up new patient consultations, but never more than 1 or 2 per day and I never dictated. Just as a heads up: Dr. Roach likes students to present in a very specific way, but the resident I was with made sure I was prepared. The remainder of the time was dedicated to attending conferences and tumor boards, as well as contouring and learning the technical aspects of radiation oncology through observing gamma knife, working with the physicists, or making masks and alpha cradles. I'd like to particularly point out how great the residents were at making sure I got the most out of my time at UCSF. I was often moved from the clinic to the OR if there was more to learn in the latter (or visa versa), and more than once the residents steered me away from working in… unpleasant situations. Also, I was frequently sent home early if things were done for the day (i.e. no waiting around until someone tells you to leave).

Impression: I really enjoyed this rotation, and I would recommend it to any and all future applicants. Whether you want to go to UCSF, or get a letter of recommendation for your application from some bigwig, or just learn as much as you can about radiation oncology, this is a great month. As I mentioned above, the residents were fantastic, but the faculty was equally welcoming and enthusiastic about the residency program and student education in general. This was an away rotation for me, but unprompted, Dr. Fogh set aside some time to go over my personal statement and ERAS application before I submitted. The only negative thing I can say is that the application process was a little frustrating. The requirements changed to include a personal statement and 2 letters of recommendation about 10 days before everything was due last April, and I was completely unprepared for either. Needless to say, those 10 days were hectic. But if this happens to you, my advice is not to be deterred because it will be completely worth it.

Offered an interview: Yes, but given the recent chatter on this thread, the other 2 student I rotated with were not offered interviews. So I guess doing the rotation itself is far from a guarantee.
 
Thanks for everyone's input - this is really helpful! Any input on some more mid-tier programs? I know it's a long shot, but particularyl interested in MUSC, Wake Forest or Kentucky.
 
Here's one for MUSC.


Institution: MUSC
Time spent: 4 weeks
Services: Students rotate one week with each of the attendings; there are currently 4 but they are in the process of hiring more so this may change. In general you get good exposure to all disease sites with gyn being a possible exception. This will likely be remedied as the faculty they plan to hire will be responsible for gyn if I recall correctly.
Presentation: End of rotation, 30 min, very well attended. All faculty, residents and physics residents attended, asked pertinent questions and gave helpful feedback.
Research: I did not seek out research opportunities during my rotation as I wanted a clinical experience, however I was told that it would be possible especially if you contact the chief resident ahead of time. Despite being a smaller, clinically oriented department there is quality clinical and physics research here especially compared to similarly sized programs. This may surprise some but I think it is true.
Role as a student: Prepare for all patients that will be seen, see patients, present to residents and attendings. You do get to contour and do some treatment planning. Students do not dictate or do any formal documentation. In general students are not given as many responsibilities at MUSC compared to my other radonc rotations which I would cite as the lone weakness of the rotation since it makes it a little harder to make yourself stand out. All in all its not a big deal though.
Impression: Really loved the rotation. Charleston is a fantastic city to spend a month in. If you are comfortable being in the south you can't beat it. The residents had great camaraderie and were very friendly to students. In summary, this is a very strong, high volume clinical program which by all indications would be a great place to train and I think it is a good place to rotate if that is what you want. This isn't a program with super specialists or "big whigs", but the faculty are great people, great clinicians, and they are dedicated to resident/student education as well as their clinical research.
Offered an interview: Yes, and as far as I know the other rotating students were as well.
 
This thread is incredible! Thank you so much to those who have contributed. Anyone have impressions to share regarding the University of Florida?

Your pleas have been answered.

Institution: University of Florida

Time spent: 4 weeks

Services: The setup is somewhat unique in that they have two main sites, Gainesville and Jacksonville. Jacksonville houses the proton beam. I rotated through the Gainesville site. From what I remember, I think they had about 6-7 attendings. If you are trying to get an interview, this would be the site to go to as the chair and PD are based here. The rotation is pretty flexible, you are allowed to follow any attending you would like depending on the amount of students rotating at that time. As expected, they are H&N heavy. Dr. Amdur and Dr. (Mr.) Mendenhall are the bigwigs on that service. There is a breast service that offers Intrabeam intraoperative radiation (analogous to Mammosite) if you’re interested in that sort of thing. Dr. Okunieff, the chair, does a lot of SBRT and is well-known for his aggressive treatment of oligometastatic lesions dating back to his time at Rochester. I think they were even talking about starting service specifically dedicated to these type of pts. I did notice that the prostate service didn’t seem that busy, I imagine the proton beam in Jacksonville cannibalizes a lot of their cases. Practically all peds cases get referred there as well. Probably not a big deal for residents as they rotate there regardless, but you may not see many on your rotation.

Role of students: Basically only expected see new patient consults, 1-2 day depending on what you can handle confidently. You are expected to research the pts on the day prior and write the full H&P the day of the visit. The nurses are very helpful in helping to get all the data ready. They are extremely specific on how they like their H&Ps done (like down to the font size and type). Make sure to ask for the template. You can see OTVs as you please and contouring is optional. Pretty flexible overall. I spent most of my time making sure the H&Ps were high quality as that was one thing they definitely assessed you on.

Presentation: 30 min presentation of your choice during one of the resident education conferences. Most attendings showed up, including the chair. I would strongly advise going over the presentation with a resident and/or the PD prior to the talk.

Research: Although I did not get involved in any research, I was told by the residents that it is extremely easy to get involved in writing something up. They apparently have a very well-oiled machine in terms of publishing clinical outcomes data. They have a data manager, statistician, and copy editor that is hired by the department for the sole purpose of publishing data. They have an annual meeting where they present this data. Its apparently well-respected, recent keynote speakers were Thomas Merchant of St. Jude’s and Buchholz from MDACC.

Didactics for students: No specific didactics for students. Basically you just follow along resident education conferences.

Impression:
I’ll try to make this section detailed as haven’t seen much about this program recently and there have multiple requests in thread. Moderator, this might be useful in the impressions thread as well.

For the visiting away student, I think this would be a great opportunity. The faculty and residents are friendly and easygoing. Logistically, I would try to avoid July and August as you will likely be competing with UF students who are already familiar with some of the faculty. I think the externs are treated well, and there didn’t seem to be a UF bias as they appeared to have more residents from other institutions. Getting housing wasn’t a big deal, lots subleases available in a college town – shouldn’t have to pay more than 500 or so.

Overall, I think the prevailing view of UF is that it was considered one of the pioneering institutions of Rad Onc (department was founded in the 60s) but kind of tailed off for bit. From my impressions at other interviews, most people think they are making a resurgence under the direction of Dr. Okunieff (formerly chair of Rochester and the NIH). I think I would agree. As a whole, I was very impressed by the program. Things that I thought were positives:
- Strong chair with pedigree and national presence who can bring funding and is well-connected.

- A good amount of “brand name” faculty (Amdur, Mendenhalls, Okunieff, etc)

- Protons. Debatable, but I think proton exposure is a definite plus, for better or worse they are here to stay and patients will want you to be informed about them.

- Research structure. Every program is going to have research, but it seems like UF makes it easier on the residents by allocating some of scut (data collection, stats, etc) to in-house professional help.

-Job placement wise, I can’t really comment for sure but I think the residents told me recent grads got jobs at UNC, Jefferson, and Stanford. Private practice wise I think its pretty variable, but I did see in the rankings thread that someone from UF is part of that Princeton Radiology group and apparently he thinks pretty highly of UF ( http://cure.cancer.ufl.edu/2012/01/1...tion-oncology/ )

-A senior PD who is actively involved. I know this doesn’t get talked about a lot, but I think its an important facet that gets overlooked. Lots of programs assign the PD spot to a younger attending and they are unable to protect resident interest because they may have to yield to senior faculty at certain times. They also are less likely to know about getting jobs as its probably their first academic position. Dr. Amdur struck me as someone who would go to bat for his residents and has been around the game long enough to know about job placement, playing the publishing game, etc .

-Tradition and stability. This is plus/minus, but I did note there were references to a "UF technique" or a UF way of doing things. Several attendings have been with the department for literally decades. It was not unusual to see a 30 year f/u in clinic. I would say its a plus for being exposed to 30 years of experience, but maybe a minus in that there is probably more resistance to change in a place with a well-established tradition. Although with protons and SBRT, I would say there are some novel things being pushed.

In terms of negatives, I think the obvious one is location. Gainesville is your standard college town, in line with places like Ann Arbor, Chapel Hill, etc. How much you like a place like that is going to be person dependent. Another potential negative might be case load. I don’t think they have a problem meeting minimum case load, but if you are one those types who learns by volume (think MSKCC) then this probably wouldn’t be the place for you. Prestige may be another factor to consider. I think within Radiation Oncology, UF is well-respected because of its history, but unlike other “elite” programs it does not have the backing of a major cancer center or an Ivy league endowment. I’m not sure how much it actually matters in practice, but those are some issues that frequently come up on this board.

Offered an interview: I’m sure it depends on your performance, but I think its generally accepted they interview the rotators (at least they did in my case). However the caveat to that would be that it didn’t seem that there were many rotators my interview year and there was only one interview date, so its conceivable you may not get one.
 
Thanks for all the info! Has anyone rotated at Mayo before?
 
Rocky mountain high . . .

Institution: University of Colorado

Time spent: 4

Services: The 8 attendings are paired one-on-one with residents, and students generally spend a given day with an attending-resident pair. Students are given a day-by-day schedule at the beginning of the rotation, but this was provisional at best and most students pretty much ignore it. Generally only a couple of attendings are seeing new consults each day, so you just pick who you want to work with the day before and touch base with the resident. The big names are Gaspar and Kavanagh so folks looking for a letter try to get cases with them when they can. Raben is the most fun, and will likely take you and the resident out to lunch if the clinic isn't too hectic.

Presentation: 45 minute talk on an interesting case + lit review in the last week or two of the rotation. VERY well attended: half the attendings, every resident, and some physicists, dosimetrists and support staff. I'm sure most of these folks were only there because of the free pizza, but the point is that the department cares enough about the talks to order pizza in order to boost attendance.

Research: I didn't personally get involved in research during my rotation, but I know others started projects. I got the sense that the rotation was busy enough that you would need at least a few weeks of devoted research time to make much progress though.

Role as a student: Like everywhere else, most time was spent seeing new consults. This entailed reading up on the patient the night before, doing the H&P and presenting to the attending. We weren't asked to dictate or give residents/attendings any sort of formal H&P write-up. This was nice, as it minimized busywork and let us focus on the important components of the patients' presentation, workup and treatment. This also meant higher volume, with students seeing 4-5 new consults each day. I did some contouring, especially towards the end, and spent a couple afternoons with f/u visits/OTVs because nobody was seeing new consults.

Didactics: None for the med students (there was only 1 rotating at any given time), but we attended all the resident didactics, which were held one afternoon a week, 12-4. Seemed pretty solid overall.

Impression: I LOVED this rotation, and would highly recommend it to others. Faculty and residents are incredibly friendly and engaging with students, and the atmosphere overall is very laid back. Days are busy (my typical hours were 7 – 5 or 6) but not overwhelmingly so, and you learn a ton seeing a relatively high volume of patients. Dr Liu, the program director, is very happy to speak with students about the application process and has good advice.

Offered an interview: Yes. I think most if not all other rotators were as well.
 
Thank you to all who are taking the time to reply and for all the of the information.

I attend a Texas state medical school and was hoping to get any impressions for away rotations done at UT-Southwestern, MDACC, and UTHSC-San Antonio.
 
Here's a question...

For those of us applying for away rotations now, what would be a good number of programs to apply to? The usual advice is to do two aways, but how many would you need to apply to in order to be reasonably assured of getting two? These electives are small and fill fast, and by the time that the decisions roll around, it's probably too late to apply to more.
 
Institution: Wake Forest

Time spent: 4 weeks

Services: Student is provided with a schedule at the beginning of the rotation pairing you with a different attending-resident pair each day. It was very acceptable to switch or spend time in some other service if something interesting came along. Spent most of the day seeing new consults and OTVs, and I was allowed to dictate my consults with attending co-sign once transcribed. This definitely enhanced my experience and let me take ownership of patients. Extremely friendly bunch of residents and very very approachable faculty. The dept chair, Dr. Blackstock is very well known in GI in circles and is incredibly personable and easy to chat with. You also attend tumor board for the service you are on typically Mon-Thurs around noon. Also great H n N service with Dr. Greven where I got to do several scopes, and loved the CNS service as well.

Presentation: 45min-1hr presentation on area/topic of your choosing. Very well attending by faculty including the Chair and all the residents in the last week of rotation. Some friendly pimping accompanies your presentation, but nothing bone breaking.

Research:This wasn't really my focus. Was there to get experience, and essentially get my feet wet outside my home department which has no residents. There was plenty, I mean tons of research if you were interested. One of the young attendings is probably going to make a name for himself in Lung/Liver SBRT. I know Bob T has this covered but they do around 40 lung SBRT weekly thanks to a very friendly thoracic surgery group.They also seem to have a giant GK database. Apparently second largest or so in the country.

Role as a student: Consults and OTVs mostly. You get to see chart rounds on Monday mornings which are led by residents on the service. I learnt a lot from these. The residents here were so phenomenal and welcoming you didn't really have to worry about scut or menial junk. Just soak up as much as you can since you don't have to present.

Didactics: Great setup. Attended daily didactics led by residents (except physics and radbio). I particularly enjoyed their setup. Tues-Friday 8amish. They basically go through each site top to bottom every single year. Didactic focuses on all the relevant evidence and major studies. By PGY-5, you've covered the material 4 times. Attended by at least one faculty member each day.

Impression: This place is gold. There is nothing pretentious about the residents or faculty at all! Genuinely grand folks all in all. This was more or less my first foray into radonc outside my home dept. I was very impressed with the overall tenor of the place and I would highly recommend this program without reservations. It was a superb learning experience that confirmed that radonc was definitely for me and how great co-residents can make a smaller program rock.

PS: One of the residents is a huge steelers fan, I mean huge. So if you are ever here on interviews, please remind him the ravens owned his team twice in 2011:smuggrin:! (He'll be done in 2015)

Offered an interview: Yes.
 
Bumping up this thread...any more impressions?
Particularly California programs?
 
Mayo

I really enjoyed my rotation at Mayo.

I did 4 weeks.

Service: Did Breast/Sarcoma, CNS, Head and Neck, and Prostate. I had a few consults most days and then many followup visits.

Presentation: 1 30 minute long presentation. You put a resident on the hot seat and ask them questions. I would suggest letting a resident know/asking them if you can pick them. Know your stuff as you are asking the questions.

Role as a student: I only had a resident with me for a few days out of the month so you are basically supposed to function as a resident. I studied/prepared for the next day probably 4 hours a night plus one more hour in the AM. I cannot confirm that the other students did this as well, but you are asked what you think the treatment should be and support it with evidence. I appreciated the faculty holding me to a high standard. I have heard people from other places say Mayo's style of learning is abrasive and they prefer to be self taught. I almost laughed out loud. If you don't want to be great just admit it. Mayo will push you to be your best and if your not emotionally tender, you will really appreciate the respect they give you by expecting you to have done your homework. They were very kind, but they expected you to have done your homework.

Research: I don't think you would have time to do research unless you were extremely motivated.

Didactics: In the AM, they pimp the residents but it's all in good fun. A case presentation format , kidn of step 3 ish. Usually the faculty chime in and help out as well. I really liked their didactics.

Overall: Well worth the experience. Faculty pushed you but were genuinely great people from a personal standpoint. I literally learned 5x as much on this rotation compared to others.

FYI: I did not match at Mayo. But I actually really liked Rochester, lots of trails, very nice people and patients.
 
Mayo

I really enjoyed my rotation at Mayo.

I did 4 weeks.

Service: Did Breast/Sarcoma, CNS, Head and Neck, and Prostate. I had a few consults most days and then many followup visits.

Presentation: 1 30 minute long presentation. You put a resident on the hot seat and ask them questions. I would suggest letting a resident know/asking them if you can pick them. Know your stuff as you are asking the questions.

Role as a student: I only had a resident with me for a few days out of the month so you are basically supposed to function as a resident. I studied/prepared for the next day probably 4 hours a night plus one more hour in the AM. I cannot confirm that the other students did this as well, but you are asked what you think the treatment should be and support it with evidence. I appreciated the faculty holding me to a high standard. I have heard people from other places say Mayo's style of learning is abrasive and they prefer to be self taught. I almost laughed out loud. If you don't want to be great just admit it. Mayo will push you to be your best and if your not emotionally tender, you will really appreciate the respect they give you by expecting you to have done your homework. They were very kind, but they expected you to have done your homework.

Research: I don't think you would have time to do research unless you were extremely motivated.

Didactics: In the AM, they pimp the residents but it's all in good fun. A case presentation format , kidn of step 3 ish. Usually the faculty chime in and help out as well. I really liked their didactics.

Overall: Well worth the experience. Faculty pushed you but were genuinely great people from a personal standpoint. I literally learned 5x as much on this rotation compared to others.

FYI: I did not match at Mayo. But I actually really liked Rochester, lots of trails, very nice people and patients.

Can you share how you found housing in Rochester? Thanks!
 
While perusing some older threads, I found a few quotes applicable to our discussion here. They aren't in the same format, but I think they are valuable enough to repost.

From Gfunk regarding UCSF:
At our institution the med student rotation is essentially free-form. You can work with whomever, whenever, and however you want. Since we limit the # of medical student rotators to two per month, it is not difficult for them to coordinate with each other. Personally, I prefer this system if you are a medical student coming in from out of state who wants to work with the more notable attendings to gain experience and procure letters of recommendation. Also, it lets you sample attendings and "feel out" which ones you appear to be most compatible with and therefore can focus your attention on.

Other places are the polar opposite where you are given a schedule by the Chief Resident which spells your schedule exactly.

As to the content of the rotation, "shadowing" pretty much covers it. I think you have to be proactive as a medical student and request to participate in activites such as contouring otherwise you risk being relagated to "fly on the wall" status.


This is from Neuronix, but I am unsure of what program it belongs to, Neuronix?

Our rotation began with a one hour intro to the department and radiation oncology with one of the chief residents. From there each student was assigned a team, though it was flexible--i.e. if you wanted to see something different you were welcome to move around. There was a meeting during the rotation with the PD to make sure everything was going okay and you were getting what you wanted from the rotation.

On the day to day I would see all new consults for the attending I was assigned to. The resident was shared between two attendings and since both services were pretty busy I felt like I could really lend a hand. Things are structured this way--the busier services tend to get students so they can help out. I would write the notes for all new consults, the resident would review and tweak them a bit, and then they'd be forwarded onto the attending. On the OTV days I would try to see the patients before the attending. I would often see all of the follow-up visits and present them to the attending directly as well. I would offer to write notes or those, but students aren't allowed to enter notes into the EMR and the attendings have quick macros that take care of a lot of the note writing. It was so busy that I didn't worry about making sure I did notes for all the OTVs and follow-ups. When there was any down time I would contour, usually normal structures. At the end of the rotation each student had to give a presentation to their team.

I think this is the best way to structure a rotation. I know some rotations out there are structured with the student going from team to team over the month to get a broad exposure. But, the one thing we need from a rotation is a letter of recommendation, and that structure typically doesn't allow one to work with one attending long enough to get a LOR.

Please let me know if you'd rather these not be posted here and I'll happily (and quickly) remove them!
 
This is from Neuronix, but I am unsure of what program it belongs to, Neuronix?

It was my home institution, so I'd rather not say for anonymity's sake. I still just think it's better to get longitudinal experience on one service rather than a broad experience in rad onc on a rotation. Logically, a broad exposure makes sense to decide if you want to go into rad onc. But unfortunately, you have to get 2-3 rad onc LORs and often in a limited amount time...
 
Can you share how you found housing in Rochester? Thanks!
You can stay at the Kehr Hotel which is owned by Mayo or at an extended stay, they send you a list of places in Rochester
 
Here's an anonymous review of Emory.


Institution: Emory University / Winship Cancer Institute
Time spent: 4
Services: Everything is available - services are Peds, H&N, GI/ Curran (mostly lung), CNS, Melanoma/Lymphoma/etc with Dr. Khan, GU, Midtown (heavy on sarcoma, gyn, gu, lung, but they treat everything), VA, and Grady (treat anything and everything, lots of gyn brachy)
Presentation: When, how long, well attended? 30 minutes one Friday. All the residents are there, some attendings.
Research: How were the opportunities? Didn't do any, but didn't seek it out.
Role as a student: H and Ps? Contouring? Etc. Generally saw New consults, 1-2 per day, present and dictate. If there weren't new consults, saw follow-ups. Contouring depends on the resident you're working with as they would have to log in for you. You will attend chart rounds and new patient conference, but don't generally present your own patients. You will also attend didactics on Friday mornings.
Impression: Like or didn't like? Would you recommend it to future applicants? Any other thoughts developed after 4 weeks. I liked Emory a lot, and I would reccomend it to students interested in rotating. The people are all nice, residents, attendings, support staff. The residents are very busy, as there is a lot of clinical volume spread across four sites and they are generally covering 1-2 attendings at a time. Two residents separately without my prompting brought up the fact that Emory had an undeserved "malignant" reputation, in order to diffuse the myth that they were overworked. They seemed happy though.
Didactics are 1x weekly, with each resident presenting a topic.
Offered an interview: We'll see in a few months
 
I was wondering which housing options for my Emory elective would allow me to forgo renting a car for the month? They sent me an email with like 50 different options, and they weren't specific to radiation oncology at all.

Any help would be appreciated! (Sorry if I should've made a new thread)
 
I've been looking into the same thing. I know there is the Inn at Emory which is literally across the street from campus. Otherwise, I've just been using airbnb.com, but unfortunately there is very little within walking/biking distance of Emory. Another option would be trying some corporate housing companies to see if they have any apartments in the complexes that are very close to emory.
 
I used a combination of these websites to find a place to stay at. I didn't have a car so I stayed at a place next to the Cliff Shuttle which is a free bus service run by Emory. You will likely spend all your time at the mothership during a research rotation, Winship Cancer Institute. If you are doing a clinical rotation you need a car.

http://www.padmapper.com/
and
https://housing.emory.edu/off-campus/search.cfm
and
http://rotatingroom.com/Emory

Cliff Shuttle
http://transportation.emory.edu

Not absolutely. Cliff does have a shuttle that runs to Midtown and Grady from main campus. It runs once hourly and is not particularly timely, though. Alternatively, you could probably ask to do your whole month on different services at main campus. Ideally, you need a car, but it could be done without.
 
What's the expected dress code in most radiation oncology departments for medical students? I'm assuming dress clothes including tie correct?

What about short white coats? I've gotten in the habit of not wearing it during third year but I wasn't sure if I most wear it in radiation oncology.
 
Better to be overdressed than underdressed. I never wore a tie in 3rd year and I wore one every day on my rotation. I also always wear my white coat. It's silly, but no one's ever going to fault you for dressing professionally, whereas some people may take under-dressing negatively.
 
I'd say definitely go with the more professional attire (tie + white coat). The residents you work with may not, and starting out looking as professional as you can shouldn't hurt.
 
Definitely rock the tie and white coat. You may even impress attendings with your style - on my interview day at a program i had rotated at, I got more comments about a particularly slick tie I had worn (one) than about my 45 minute talk to the whole department (zero).
 
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