Stuck at a Primary Care School, Need Advice
By Guest on Saturday, 19 October 2002
Posted in Match Center
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Just came across this site....spent ALL day reading the posts. Glad there is such a great site to disseminate info on ortho!

I am at a school that emphasizes primary care, and thought I wanted to do general surgery...I JUST started an ortho rotation (halfway through my 4th year) and I absolutely love it. Unfortunately I had no electives during my 3rd year, and early in my 4th year I did all gen surg electives.

Im not going to post the typical "here are my numbers" routine, will I get into ortho: I realize it involves a variety of factors.

My question is this:

I just got an away rotation (kind of late) in ortho starting in November. I am rotating at a school currently WITHOUT an ortho residency, and have no idea what to expect in 2 weeks.

My wife is stressing, but I know if I don't go after ortho, I'll always have it in the back of my mind during my gen surg residency. Anyone else here do the same thing or feel this way?
hyaluronate,

It is NEVER to late to change your carreer plans. I know several people who decided to do ortho late in the game, and matched.

Probably the worst thing that could happen is you don't match in ortho, so you do a transitional year of gsurg and hope a pgy2 position becomes available. The other thing you could do is spend a year doing research in ortho and then reapply.

RE: rotating at a school without a residency program, well, just kick ass on the rotation and get a letter of rec. Two ortho rotations will look better than one!

Good luck,
Guest
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23 years ago
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Hey there,

I'd say go for it . . . November is definitely not too late. Three people in my program rotated here in November and think we got in b/c by that time we had some ortho under our belts and things were polished. Just read up for your rotation i.e. anatomy and if you're a good guy, let it shine through.

Michael
Guest
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23 years ago
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Thanks you both for the responses!
Guest
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23 years ago
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Yeah dude,

You don't want to do that to yourself (i.e. spend the rest of your life doing g-surg). Go after ortho. Hopefully you pulled down a few letters of rec. during your home rotation. I don't think you're going to be too late to change. Your situation's not ideal, but you have a chance to match ortho.

UPittMike-nice to see you posting again. hope thing's are going well at pitt.
Guest
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23 years ago
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Thanks Bone Jock,

Things are going well at Pitt. Got probably the three hardest rotations out of the way, CT transplant, Peds surg, and Trauma (with only half the number of interns we're supposed to have and the other intern taking vacation the last week of my rotation). I'm currently on a fairly cush rotation and the rest of my year, except for 3 weeks of plastics looks great. Finally, time to go out . . .

Oh yeah, and first month of ortho starts in November, just in time for the OITE, yippee.
Guest
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23 years ago
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