WVSOM - Quality of Clinical Rotations

[FutureDoc2011]

What is the quality of 3rd/4th year rotations for WVSOM students? Do you get a lot of hands on experience? And a general question - How are rotations set up - Does the school set them up for you? What is the process?

Thanks in advance!

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[medmom]

Hopefully a current student will reply. I think they set up 3rd year and you set up fourth year. I have some q's as well.
As a mother, what are the chances I can stay in L'burg or beckley for all 4 years?
If I do get to stay, how many rotations will NOT be at on of those sites?
Can I do 3rd AND 4th is l'burg or Beckley?
How do they decide who goes where?

 

[waveds85]

are they going to change or add rotations due to the increase class size?

 

[CatsandCradles]

What is the quality of 3rd/4th year rotations for WVSOM students? Do you get a lot of hands on experience? And a general question - How are rotations set up - Does the school set them up for you? What is the process?

Im not qualified to answer this question, but I will try to.

3rd year is structured

It use to be where you were you had to do things yourself, but then about 4 or 5 years ago they said that was too much trouble so now they do it for us.

Hopefully a current student will reply. I think they set up 3rd year and you set up fourth year. I have some q's as well.
As a mother, what are the chances I can stay in L'burg or beckley for all 4 years?
If I do get to stay, how many rotations will NOT be at on of those sites?
Can I do 3rd AND 4th is l'burg or Beckley?
How do they decide who goes where?

You have to choose what hospital you want to be at. If you want to stay in Lewisburg, you can, but you are going to most likely go through a lottery system cause there are usually 15 or so people who want to stay in Lewisburg.

I think only 10 people are allowed to do third year rotations directly at Lewisburg. So the other 5 had to go to their second or third choices.

The lottery system works like this: You choose what hospital you really really want to be at during your third year. This is your first choice. You then pick a second choice and third choice.

A lottery will happen if there are more people than can go to a certain site.
So if there are 10 openings, and only 9 people want to go to that site, then there is no lottery system - everybody who wants to go there can go there.

A lottery only happens if there are too many applying to one site: such as Lewisburg.

There were 2 lotteries for the 2nd year class. One for Lewisburg and another for I think Huntington - all the other places did not fill.

This is going to be problematic for people with kids and family since their children are probably going to be going to Lewisburg Elementary (Which is directly right next to WVSOM) and I can definantly see how hard it will be to pack up and move again.

Beckly, the town next to Lewisburg has two hospitals - Raligh General Hospital and the military VA hospital. Both did not fill so those are still had slots open. I did visit these hospitals over Thanksgiving break and it took me 45 minutes to drive there from my place in Lewisburg - so it is still quite a drive if you are someone who obeys the speed limit. If you want to go to one of the Beckly hospitals, then your probably going to have to pack up and move - unless you are willing to drive.

If you want to go farther to Charleston, you can rotate at the the 900 bed hospital system with CAMC (WVU). Strangely that didn't fill either.

are they going to change or add rotations due to the increase class size?

For the class of 2010, there will be more sites and more slots, and also some sort of system with Ohio Univeristy and Missisippi if you want to partcipate in that. But I have no clue how that works cause I fell asleep when the dean tried to explain it to us.

I'm afraid I don't know if they will change things further for the class of 2011.

...Maybe Megalofiya, Richie, or John can jump in here..

4th year is a free for all if you want it to be one

You can stay in West Virginia if you like. It would be like 3rd year.

Or you can go wherever you like. International rotations seem quite popular.

Despite being from the Philadelphia/New Jersey area, I am beggining to think I might just go ahead and stay here West Virginia for 4th year - though I'd still love do a few rotatations with the Jefferson and PCOM system.

I'll post more information on clerkships in the WVSOM2011 thread when I get a chance.

Goodnite!

 

[Richie Truxillo]

...Maybe Megalofiya, Richie, or John can jump in here..

I am inbetween cases right now but I will shed some light on clinical rotations when we finish these cysto and lithoclast procedures. But the lottery system explanation above is good.

Be back in....er..5 hours or so?

-Richie

 

[Richie Truxillo]

Ok so the cysto table broke after the second case and we had to wait for an empty room so a 4 hour day turned into 11 hours....but here goes nothing.

We had the option of doing traditional rotations or the statewide campus program. From what I understand the option still exists but they are moving to make it so everyone does Statewide campus their 3rd year.

Statewide campus requires that you pick a hospital and do all of your rotations within a 25 mile radius of there. The good news is that you get to know all of the physicians there, which affords you the chance to participate more in patient care if you wish. The other side of the coin is that you don't get the experience of working at multiple hospitals to see what it is like.

The Lewisburg rotation fills every year due to its convenience so naturally it goes to lottery as mentioned above.

As for hands on experience, it depends on the hospital you go to and who you work with. In general, at larger acedemic hospitals, there is a hierarchy of attendings, residents and interns that get first crack at procedures. Why you ask? Because they need the training more than a 3rd year med student does at the time. This is not always the case but has been my experience thus far. On the flip side, if lectures are your thing, acedemic hospitals have excellent lecture programs for students during the day. Again, this is not always the case. If you are a competent, motivated student who is well-liked by the staff, you are more likely to have the opportunity to learn procedures wherever you go.

4th year is purely up to you. You schedule your own rotations and set them up. Hopefully you'll set up rotations at programs you want to do residency at so you can show them what you are capable of. Princeton, WV is my campus site and I love it so far. However, I am down in my hometown of Wilmington, NC doing a urological surgery rotation right now. I love it here too.

I cannot comment on changes in the class size because I just don't know. I would imagine they have a plan in place though.

Overall I'd say the quality of clinical rotations is good. Now before I lose my train of thought I am going to hit the post button and get some rest!

Feel free to PM me if ya have other questions.

-Richie

 

[Big Cat]

The rotation sites for the future classes are definately being expanded to accomodate the increased matriculation. And there are many sites across the state to do rotations at as well.

 

[AF DO]

When setting up your own rotations your fourth year, is the hospital restricted to teaching hospitals? There is a DO hospital in Michigan where my parents live, but it is not a teaching hospital. ( I would love the free housing and moms cooking... )

 

[Big Cat]

Most of your rotations will be here in good ol' WV. However, some can be done out of state, but I am not sure at what point that is available. That would be something you would need to discuss with an administrator.

 

[CatsandCradles]

When setting up your own rotations your fourth year, is the hospital restricted to teaching hospitals? There is a DO hospital in Michigan where my parents live, but it is not a teaching hospital. ( I would love the free housing and moms cooking... )

Wait, your thing says you are from Kalamazoo Michigan....

For some reason I remember learning there is a pediatric grading standard called the "Kalamazoo" standard...it's a growth curve history of a child..I think...