Me. It's all about me here.

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NY, United States
My name is Daren. I currently attend LECOM in Bradenton, FL. This is currently my 4th year of med school. I created this blog to post my thoughts about medical school. And because I rock. Boom. So please, come make yourself at home and enjoy my musings. If you are easily offended by things (ie sarcasm, being politically incorrect, etc) then I suggest you evacuate the immediate vicinity :)

Sunday, January 5, 2014

On ER, Auditions, and Interviews

Well, a most rejuvenated, invigorating, serendipitous, and jovial New Year to you all! I do hope your [insert your holiday here] was a delight. I know mine was. It has been pretty awesome this past year. It's currently pretty nice here for a snowy winter. Got up to 40°F yesterday so we went skiing. My hands are super sore now from holding the tow rope to get up the hill. Comes with the territory I guess.

So this time it's gonna be a little different. I'll talk briefly about my ER experiences and then get into audition rotations and the interview season.

Disclaimer: I really do not enjoy working in the ER. It's better than OB/GYN and surgery, but still. Blah.

I did my 2 ER rotations in Batavia NY. They wanted 12 x 12 hour shifts per rotation. It was kind of randomly scheduled. It was always either 7a-7p or 7p-7a. Fortunately I didn't have more than 3 in a row and they gave me at least a day to switch my schedule around if I had to go back and forth between nights and days. The ER is pretty busy during the day. Most of those are fairly mundane things that aren't real emergencies. You know, your toddler with a runny nose and a mild fever or cough. You have your drunken idiots who are pissing themselves and being belligerent. You have lots of "code browns" (diarrhea). Chicks who have cramps and a particularly bad period. But you also have real medical problems like STEMI's, cardiac arrests, acute COPD exacerbations, etc. I got to intubate a few people, which was pretty cool. So the drill for a student is show up, see someone, present to the attending, be baller. The attendings here are really nice and understanding. And the nurses are fantastic. They know their stuff and are super chill. I can't say enough good things about the staff here. I learned so much from them. Love your nurses, people.

Night shift was even better. I hate staying up all night, but honestly, it's so much better on nights. You have your evening rush (you know, people who have nothing else better to do after dinner and feel the need to see a doc), and then it kind of dies down usually by midnight. You'll have some weird people coming in (pain med seekers, drunks, drug OD, psych issues) but for the most part it's pretty chill. You'll have an occasional emergency too. The best part though, is the FOOD! The docs and nurses bring lots of food and it is amazing. You're eating your way through the night and it really does make the shifts much more bearable. We hang out and chill, pretty sweet deal.

Ok, so despite my really good feeling about working ER in Batavia, it's just not my type of medicine, hence my dislike for it. Yes, it's lucrative. Yes, it's shiftwork and you don't take your work home with you. Yes, you get a lot of time off. But while you're in the ER, you're dealing with EVERYTHING. The best of them and the worst of them. It's the worst of them (and the volume of those) that gets to me. And the fact that you have to deal with parents of "sick" children. More often than not, I feel like I need to treat the parents rather than the kids. Kids get stuffy and whiny. They cough. They barf. They crap their pants. They crap on you. You deal with it as a parent. The ER is not a daycare. *gets off soapbox* Ok, and I really dislike ob/gyn and you get a fair number of ob/gyn cases in the ER. Not my thing. Go to your primary or female parts doc. Not me.

So my overall impression of ER in Batavia: great working environment, awesome nurses/techs/docs, crappy patient population.

Ok, so onto audition rotations.

So I've been asked a lot about audition rotations. What is it? It's a misnomer if you ask me. Whenever you rotate somewhere, you're being watched. People are seeing if you're a hard worker, whether you're a douche or friendly, are you easy to get along with, etc. No matter the label you put on the rotation, you're auditioning. So it's really no different from a typical rotation. However, people traditionally still use that term to denote that you are rotating at the site because you want to apply there for residency and it's like you're auditioning to be in a movie or a band or something. There is a slightly different expectation sometimes where they expect you'll come earlier to help on busy days or stay later or do more stuff. Some people call it a sub-internship. Whatever you call it, it's basically for the program to see if they like working with you. Don't forget though, you're also auditioning them to see if you like working at that particular place. It's a two way street.

When is audition season? During July-Dec of your 4th year of med school. But like I said, if you have rotated there even in 3rd year, consider it an audition.

When should you set up your auditions? I always live by the rule of get it done early. I set mine up close to 6 months in advance, although if scheduling is being dumb, you might have some last minute scrambling to get it set up.

How many should I do? This is really dependent on you and what you want to do. I set up 4 Internal Med auditions. There are plenty of DO IM programs so I wasn't too concerned. Most people I talk to do 2-5 auditions with more in the 3-4 range. For other specialties, I cannot comment since I haven't the knowledge.

Finally, you kind of want to coordinate your audition rotations with your interview scheduling. You don't want to have to take a crap ton of days off your audition rotation to go on interviews. You also don't want to audition somewhere AFTER you've already interviewed there, although it's not a huge deal if you do. Many places will schedule you an "exit interview" where towards the end of your rotation, they give you a courtesy interview on site. I like these because you don't have to make a deliberate trip back there after you're already done.

 And as far as interviews go, I applied to 13 programs, got 11 interview offers, and went to 8. Two of those were on site during my rotation so that was nice. Most of them were SUPER chill. Very relaxed, conversational. A couple were kind of hardcore with the interviewers semi-drilling you with questions, but overall, it was a very good experience. I was able to travel a bit and see different places as well so it was very nice. When setting up interviews, sometimes you gotta take what you get, but most of them had multiple dates available. Use your common sense. Dress to impress (but stay conservative). Be chill, be relaxed, don't freak out. If you got an interview, that means you're good enough on paper. Now they want to see your personality. If they offer a dinner beforehand, go to it! Don't order booze unless the docs/residents do. And even still, use discretion. If they seem like the super chill type who likes having a good time, it may be prudent to get a beer or something. If they seem like stiffies, it may be better to hold off on that. But really though, if you feel out the situation, you'll know what to do. Bring a portfolio thingy (you know, those leather binder things that have absolutely no use but look professional) with a copy of your CV, personal statement, a pen, etc. It just looks good. And if perchance they do say something that you want to keep in mind, you can always write it down. Or it can be a good way for you to come up with questions to ask them beforehand.


So there you have it. I'll be back with more later. Peace out kids.

Oh btw, here's something to keep you entertained for 3.5 minutes: It's good for you!