Happy Sunday, everyone!

This was a very busy week for me. On top of block and board studying, I attended a conference where I presented my current research. It was my first conference and it was an oral presentation so it was definitely a bit stressful. It went well, however, and I really enjoyed getting to spend some time with my friends who also got to present. As a med student you know that your peers are smart, but you forget how brilliant they are sometimes. Watching my friends present their incredible research was really exciting. It was also really fun to spend some time at the beach (because we tried to study there but obviously couldn’t get a whole lot done, lol).

In late January we had submitted our preferences for our third year clerkship schedules. Third year clerkships or “rotations” are where you get to use all of the endless information you acquired your first two years of med school and apply it to the clinical setting. It’s also a time where you solidify what your interests are and what specialty you’ll choose to pursue. On top of all of the fun exploratory stuff, you still have to perform at your best in order to be evaluated highly and be worthy of your attendings’ letters of recommendation for residency applications. That sounds like a lot, but I’m really looking forward to it. After all, I’ve been in a lecture-based setting my whole life and this is the next step towards becoming a physician.

My school offered a choice of 16 pre-arranged “tracks” that we could choose from. We were asked to rank all 16 tracks and then submit our list in order for a lottery to be run. It was rather stressful because clerkship order is important, and getting a track that you weren’t totally fond of wouldn’t great, though you could certainly make it work. The only piece of advice that we were given is to make sure what you’re interested in is not first or last. That still leaves a lot of questions. I scoured the internet for other med student blogs that might offer insight on what the “best schedule” was, but it varied. I also asked a few of my friends that are residents or current third/fourth years. I found this resource to be the most helpful.

Though I don’t know exactly specialty I’m set on, I have a few that I’m interested in: surgery, peds, ob/gyn - in that order. With that I was able to look for tracks that would keep these three somewhere in the middle and definitely not first/last. I had also been told that in order to do well on on the surgery shelf exam, a strong background in internal med is a great starting point. I know for sure that I’m not interested in internal med as a career, and since it is so fundamental for success in other rotations I decided to place internal med first.

A few of my friends and I submitted the same rank orders since we know we would work well together and also have similar interests. And lucky for us we ended up with our first choice!



As far as subsurgical specialty choices I’m leaning heavily towrads Ortho. I’ve had exposure to the fireld through an ortho elective and find it surprisingly interesting. We also have the option to choose a hospital setting or a private practice setting for a few clerkships. I’m considering doing ob/gyn in private practice because my friend (who is now an ob/gyn intern) had such a great experience doing that. Also, ob/gyn tends to be more of a malignant experience for medical students at my institution’s hospital so private practice seems like a better choice for me, especially if I’m looking to learn a lot and be an active member of the care team.

I’m so excited to start clerkships this June. I’m also looking forward to sharing my experiences regularly through this blog since insight into the clerkship experience online is pretty bleak.

Have a great week!