Orthopedics

Location

Rush

# Weeks

2, 4

Hours/week on site

31-40, 51-60, 61-70

Open to M3s?

yes

Scheduled through OASIS?

yes

On Rush schedule?

yes

# other students

1, 4 or more

Prerequisites

Surgery

Interviewing/Step 2 flexibility

Flexible but don't take days off if you want to impress on this elective

Overnight call?

no

Work weekends?

no

Weekend call?

no

Is there an exam at the end of the rotation

no

Students required to give a presentation

yes, on some services

Teaching hours/day

0-2, 3-4

Teaching style

Morning report/Case conference, Lecture given by resident or attending, informally in the OR

Suggested reading/pocket contents

M1 anatomy, Netter's ortho was especially helpful for time spent in the OR.

Structure of rotation

Team-based, One-on-one with attendings/residents

Amt/quality of time residents/attendings

This is a surgical elective most of your time is in the OR.  Some attendings pay attention to you some do not.  The residents are typically good about answering questions explaining things.  Formal teaching is minimal.

Clerkship is resident-dependent. Only time with attending is in OR

The entire time was spent with the residents.  Students worked closely with attendings during the OR and clinic.

I spent most of the day with the senior resident on the Sports Medicine service.  He was always willing to answer questions and do informal teaching during downtime.  I also had lots of interaction with fellows and attendings in the OR and, again, most of the teaching was informal and related to the OR case.  I thought the teaching was pretty good since it was completely tailored to my interests.

Proportion of time evaluating pts alone

0-25%, 50-75%

# pts evaluated/day

2-4, 4-6, 6-8, 8-10

Procedures

A few times/day, A few times/week, A few times/month

Typical day

6AM work rounds.  645AM teaching rounds. Two days per week in clinic 8AM - 5PM, three days per week in the OR 7AM - ???.

Morning report, position and drape patient, scrub for OR cases, assist with suctioning, positioning, retracting

Meet between 6:15 and 6:45.  Go to the OR and do cases until they are done.  Go home when cases are done (anywhere between 2:30 and 8:30).  Clinic days usually ended around 3:30.

The day began with all ortho services meeting to discuss any new patients admitted/consults overnight.  I then spent the rest of the day on the Sports Medicine service, which is almost entirely outpatient surgery.  I would scrub in on or observe 3-4 cases on an average day.  I didn't get to do a whole lot besides watch on the TV screen (most cases were arthroscopic) or help with retracting, but I still thought the cases were really interesting.  There wasn't a ton of downtime - enough to eat lunch, and I was sent home at a reasonable time in the afternoon.

Usefulness for any residency

1-2 of 5 stars, 4 of 5

Usefulness for this residency

2 of 5 stars, 4-5 of 5

Useful for other specialties

General Surgery, ER, primary care.

Anything.  The residents try to teach about what you would need to know about ortho if you did not go into ortho.  Especially useful for ER and primary care.

Overall rating

anywhere from 1-5 stars

Recommended to other students

1 of 5 stars, 4-5 of 5

Other comments

Get in touch with the course directors secretary before you start and you can choose which teams you will work with.  Joints, Sports, Hand, Foot/Ankle, Spine, Tumor/Trauma/Peds

Least favorite rotation.

Even though there are a lot of students on the rotation, there are several teams, so there is only 1 student per attending at any given time.

Each ortho service operates very differently from the others.  My only complaint is that, on Sports, there wasn't much of an emphasis on working in clinic.  I only went one day, and I had to go out of my way to schedule that.