I would encourage you to take courses you are interested in unless you have a definite career in mind and it involves one of the 6 core clerkships or neurology. Also, taking all 3 of your required classes 4th year isnt bad. Esp. surg subs which you can even take during interview month.
FYI, surg subs is one week of uro and anesthesia.. which were cake for me… anesth i was at ECMC done by 7-2P every day, learned to put in peripheral IV lines, bored myself to death
uro. well i loved it, cool residents, good teaching nice blend of medicine/surg. I was at VA where we started at 7A til 5P except friday (clinic day) when you are done at noon.
I chose ortho which I loved, it is a little more intense, but probably the best program we have at UB, and its nice to see how a good program is run from a teaching perspective/didactics. Clinic is very well run and the PAs are great teachers. The surgeries, are intense and it really depends how dirty you want to get your hands… i stayed late got in on cases and got to amputate pts, sew 'em back up… it was fun. I know I couldnt be ortho, but I could see my self in sports med.
-Neurosurg is long hours, i didnt do it but people who did seemed to like it. Maybe relevant if you have an interest in neurology/peds, but again i imagine the cases are long.
-Vascular, kind of repetitive since you do it again in surgery, long cases. If you dont like surgery you prolly wont like.
-optho. Is a popular choice for folks that dont want to do surgery and have an easy 2 weeks. Again I didnt do it. Easy hours
-ENT. People loved ENT. I didnt do it. Hours variable, but interesting blend of medicine and surgery.
My advice is take Optho/ENT if you def. dont wanna be a surgeon. IF you think you can go both ways (i mean med vs surgery, keep it clean) you may wanna try ortho/ENT. I would advise against Neurosurg unless you are thinking about neurology then there may be some advantage, but I am not sure what. Regardless of your interest I would avoid vascular which will be repeated in gen. surg.
Hope that helps. You have effectively procrastinated me in my personal statement writing.. i hold you accountable. I would ask peeps in your class since they seem to have stayed later for both URO/anesthesia… i guess it may be site/personnel dependent.
