Short answer: No.

Long answer: While most people agree it's the smartest thing to do your home sub-i first, I think that's for two primary reasons:

1) so that you learn how to do well on an ortho sub-i BEFORE going elsewhere and trying to impress people who don't know you at all

2) so you can get your letter(s) of rec all squared away nice and early.

It also helps to give you a baseline to compare all other programs to, but I think that's secondary.

If you already know how to work on an ortho sub-i and you will not have a problem getting your letter from your home program in on time (with home sub-i in July you should have plenty of time) then you have nothing to worry about.

I did an away that ended in mid September and managed to get a letter in to ERAS from that. So don't worry about it. Just stay proactive, organized, and focused.

Congratulations!

Thanks for your input, that's certainly reassuring.

Any others that have advice or experience to share please do so!

I did an away rotation first, in July, having never done ortho before. It was great for a couple of reasons:
1. you are likely to be the only student there, especially if there's no associated medical school. This makes you memorable and will give you flexibility on which cases you scrub.
2. Everyone will be out of sorts with the new residency turnover, making your mistakes, such as they may be, much less noticeable. Keep in mind though, this may give you an unfair negative impression of the program.

Study hard beforehand and you will be remembered at your away location. When you get home, you will be compared to the other students from your school (who did their sub i in july or are doing their first 4th year ortho rotation) and, having just done an ortho rotation, you will be way ahead.

Bottom line, if you can swing it, this will put you ahead of the game.