Radiation Oncology

Location

Rush

# Weeks

2

Hours/week on site

41-50, 31-40 (2)

Open to M3s?

yes

Scheduled through OASIS?

no, yes

On Rush schedule?

yes

# other students

1

Prerequisites

none, don't know

Interviewing/Step 2 flexibility

I don't know, 2 days taken off

I took 2 days off in 2 wks 

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

no

Teaching hours/day

1-2 (2), 0-1

Teaching style

morning report/case conference, lecture by resident/attending, student presentation, one-on-one with resident or attending when seeing a pt in clinic

Suggested reading/pocket contents

Med student guide written by past students will be emailed to you prior to starting.

Structure of rotation

One-on-one with attendings/residents

Amt/quality of time residents/attendings

You follow one resident and attending throughout their day. Each attending specializes in particular organ systems which they irradiate (e.g. prostate, lung, breast), and throughout the rotation you get a few days in clinic with each attending.

You are set up to work with an attending on a per-week basis, and each attending has one assigned resident working with them. You'll coordinate with the resident to determine the best way to spend your time. The attendings vary in the amount of effort they dedicate to teaching the students.

The day is spent mostly shadowing the residents. They are very willing
to teach if you ask questions. Not as much time with attendings,
although you could perhaps get more exposure if you show a particular
interest in RadOnc.

Proportion of time evaluating pts alone

25-50% (2), 0-25%

# pts evaluated/day

2-4, 0-2

Procedures

Never

Typical day

8 AM rounds till 9 AM. 9 - 12 patients in clinic or treatments or treatment planning. 12 - 1 eat lunch. 1 - 5 patients in clinic or more treatments.

Conference/lecture at 8am every day, patients seen at the clinic from 9-4 with varying schedules depending on the day. Occasionally with have tumor clinic (breast tumor clinic, chest tumor clinic, etc) in the heme/onc clinic on the 8th floor of the Pro building. Residents are relatively busy throughout the day, but since Rad Onc is very technical and advanced for a medical student, the amount of time you spend with them depends on your level of interest. You can choose to stay with the resident all day, or you can choose to sit in the work room and read all day. They let you navigate your time based on your level of interest

Each day started with a different conference at 8am. The rest of the
morning was spent paired up with a resident to see patients in clinic
and/or in radiation planning sessions. On some days, I attended
conferences in other departments related to RadOnc. There's a lot of
down time and the residents usually let us go between 2 and 4.

Usefulness for any residency (# stars/5)

2, 4, 1

Usefulness for this residency (# stars/5)

5, 5, 5

Useful for other specialties

Imperative for Rad/Onc (1 month, not two weeks). Also useful for Heme/Onc.

All IM and surgical specialties. Can be helpful for any specialty that will have oncology related patients.

I didn't think there was much value in this rotation beyond that for someone interested in RadOnc as a specialty.

Overall rating (# stars/5)

4, 3, 2

Recommended to other students (# stars/5)

4, 3, 2

Other comments

More than almost any other rotation, it's what you make of it. If you don't want to work more than 5 hours a day, you don't have to; if you want to work 10 hours, you certainly can find stuff to do.

Most everyone in the department is very nice and easy to work with, but the field is very specialize and technically advanced, leaving a larger gap between what we as medical students know or can do on the rotation. They let you determine what level you want to participate, so it can be a very uneventful, unengaging rotation if you don't take any initiative. Overall, it was good to actually see radiation treatment plans for common malignancies that I will undoubtedly see throughout my career.

The residents are really nice people and very aware that the students
don't want to sit around doing nothing. So there may not be a ton to
do, but at least you'll usually be told to go home if nothing is going
on.