this may sound like a silly Q but

[Deepa100]

Hi,
I will be starting a DO program this fall. After doing interviews at 5 DO schools, it seems to me that since most DO schools do not have teaching hospitals, setting up rotations gets tricky especially in the fourth years.


My Q to you is- if the state does not have many med schools, why would it be hard to set up rotations? Take Minnesota. We only have U of M and Mayo. So, in theory, I should be able to set up my 4th yr. rotations in Minneapolis, right? But why is it hard?

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[JeffLebowski]

Hi,
I will be starting a DO program this fall. After doing interviews at 5 DO schools, it seems to me that since most DO schools do not have teaching hospitals, setting up rotations gets tricky especially in the fourth years.


My Q to you is- if the state does not have many med schools, why would it be hard to set up rotations? Take Minnesota. We only have U of M and Mayo. So, in theory, I should be able to set up my 4th yr. rotations in Minneapolis, right? But why is it hard?

It's tricky only because it's not done for you. But I think you'll be surprised about how much paperwork, time, and effort it takes to figure out which rotations you want, when you want to do them, when you CAN do them, what prereqs there are to do them (immunizations, PPD, what rotations you have to have completed, etc.), what paperwork is required from both you and the school, filling out the application, making sure you get it all in and done by the deadlines, and some places require an LOR, etc. Plus as a DO student there are still some rotations that don't let you rotate through because you're not from an LCME accredited university. And of course you won't be able to do ALL your 4th year rotations in Minnesota (hopefully that's not what you meant) - I'm quite sure your school will have ~1/2 of your 4th year required rotation weeks as "intramurals" = you have to do them within your school's rotation system. Anyway, it's kind of a headache overall to schedule them all.

My opinion is that the best school to attend rotation-wise is a school that has its own teaching hospital (which is solid) but also has relationships at other neighboring sites so that if you want to go to another hospital within the city for 3rd year (or 4th year intramurals) you can. Go to a school that has a well-established department in many/all specialties. If you go to a school where students pretty much exclusively rotate at the SOM hospital, that's usually not ideal in my opinion, and if you go to a school where students CAN'T rotate at any SOM hospital (like if your school doesn't have one), that's also a disservice to students.

Edit: but to answer your first question more specifically - I doubt setting up "away" rotations (as opposed to intramurals) 4th year will be that much more difficult than a student at any other school, because we all have to fill out the same paperwork. Your challenge will be to do all that paperwork and stuff for intramurals as well, and just keep track of it all.

 

[AmyO]

As JeffLebowski mentioned above, it's not that it is necessarily hard, but it is time-consuming and you have to be flexible. All of the away programs that I have researched will not schedule you until all of their students have been scheduled, which makes sense but also means that you likely won't find out about many of your fourth year aways until the summer or even early fall since many don't even start looking at your apps until late spring of the year before. You must have a backup plan in case something falls through or they don't have a spot for you. It also costs money (for many places) to even send an application, which can be anywhere from $20 to a couple of hundred dollars (yes I have seen some charge $250+) and that's non-refundable. Plus you need to find somewhere to stay for that month once you actually do get the rotation, which can be tricky if you don't have any friends or family in the area. Bottom line....you have to be organized, on the ball, and flexible.

 

[Deepa100]

Thanks for the responses. It is unfortunate that when we interview we can not talk to 3rd/4th yr. students about stuff like this. I am sure they would answer Q's, it is just that they are away.