Choosing a second elective

[taotaox1]

So I am a second year PA student currently on rotation.  My current goal is to go into Urgent Care/Emergency Medicine when I finish next summer.  We got two electives.  I chose an orthopedics rotation because I felt I know almost no orthopedics and wanted hands on time.  My other elective is an MICU rotation that I chose because I thought I might want to work in an ICU (I know I don't at this point).

 

I am able to change my MICU rotation and wanted some opinions....

 

My  thoughts are this:

 

1. Keep the rotation

-Acute care will be good training for the ED. Good opprotunities to perform procedures.   I am afraid it will and up being more of a shadowing type experince due to the nature of the acuteness and the site I am at.

 

2.  Neurology

-I am really bad (and terrified of) neurology and feel like a rotation that forces me to engage it for a month would improve a skill that would be useful no matter what field I go in to.

 

3. 2nd ED rotation

-This is pretty straight forward.

 

4. Somthing else?

-feel free to chime in

 

 

Would love to hear what people think on the matter.

[Jorge]

If it's going to be mostly shadowing I would go with a second ED rotation. You usually get to do a lot in the ED as a student and gain good experience. Plus, it's the specialty you want to go into.

[SHU-CH]

You will probably get a dozen different opinions. As an ER PA, if I had the opportunity to go back to school I would spend time in areas that I felt weak in or didn't particularly like. If the MICU rotation will not be good, I would go with the neuro. GYN and derm might also be good. You need to know a little about everything in the ER, so you can't really go wrong.

[EMEDPA]

trauma

anesthesiology