the biggest thing to take away from an away rotation whether u do sports, hand, trauma or peds is that u work your butt off and u make them want u for their own program; some aways will rotate u through the different services regardless. the second thing to get is a letter of rec, make sure it is from a well know academic staff b/c those letters are the ones that help u out and get u interviews.

I would advise you to try to do trauma at most places......but some will just have a general service.....trauma tends to be more blue-collar and med students can step up and really get some work done....I think this stands out more in the residents mind....if you splint and do h/p's all night the residents really like that.

I would also say that if you are on sports/spine/joints....I would take no less than Q4 trauma call....

You wont be able to do 3 months of hardcore trauma but you could set up your aways with a week off inbetween,.

You just want to find out who the influential "key players" i.e. the people who carry weight during residency selections are and impress them by working hard and being likeable. These people typically include, the chairman, the program director, the tenured attendings, the residents and the junior facualty only if they are the "rising stars" (next PD, "the spine guy", the next leaders in ortho) - in that order. I know that sounds very obvious but you would be surprised..... If you can impress the chairmen, PD, and residents you are doing very well. Chairmen can be hard to access so adjust accordingly. Whatever services these people are on are the ones you should do - peds, hand, spine, whatever. You get to know the residents on your service and the others by doing lots of call (trauma) and presenting at fracture conference. Don't do trauma because its trauma. The PD or chairman may hate the trauma guy - but that's program politics that you probably won't have access to. I compare this process to rushing a fraternity as much as applying for a job.