Question for EMPAs

[dhmiles]

Hello,

I am currently wrapping up my clinical year of PA school and have two electives to complete before I finish. I am dead set on practicing emergency medicine and am trying to decide which electives will be most beneficial before I attempt to start my career in this field. I have already completed two 6 wk EM rotations and could always do another. I was also considering ortho, cardiology, derm, trauma. As practicing EMPAs, what do you recommend? Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Dustin

[rcdavis]

Ortho and cards.

[Medic207]

Ortho and cards.

 

Agree totally!

[ventana]

critical care, RCU, ICU

 

 

dx radiology as a hit - get that plain film and CT knowledge down

[primadonna22274]

Definitely ortho. A toss-up between cards and critical care for 2nd.

[jen0508]

I agree ortho was a helpful rotation. However make sure you rotate somewhere where you are in the office more than in the OR. I rotated at a sports medicine practice and have found the experience very helpful as an EM PA.

 

if you didnt have a peds rotation (or a good one) i would recommend peds. you will see lots and lots of sick kids. my peds rotation wasnt a strong one so i had initial trouble dealing with the kiddos, and dosing their meds

[EMEDPA]

peds em, trauma, icu.

[RetNavyPAC]

Ortho & Peds I think would be the best bang for your buck

[dhmiles]

Good stuff! Thanks everyone, greatly appreciated.

[treejay]

i'm in the same situation as the OP. My school only had us do 4 weeks of EM. I was thinking of doing an Ortho, and another 4 weeks of EM. or should I scrap the second 4 weeks in EM and shoot for critical care/icu ? i'd really like to have an experience in the icu.

[EMEDPA]

I did ortho and didn't find it that helpful. all the cool ortho stuff happens in the er, not the ortho clinic.

[kenyabill]

I did ortho and didn't find it that helpful. all the cool ortho stuff happens in the er, not the ortho clinic.

 

I'm set on emergency med too. My school offers a surgery rotation that we can choose. Either gen surg, ortho, neuro, or cardiothoracic. What might you guys recommend?

[kargiver]

Ortho and cards.

 

Agreed... However, if you are strong in Cards already, I would do Ortho and Neuro.

 

G

[medic25]

I did ortho and didn't find it that helpful. all the cool ortho stuff happens in the er, not the ortho clinic.

 

It must depend on the rotation; I learned a lot on my ortho rotation, both on ED consults and in clinic. We did a lot of splinting/casting in the clinics, and it was a good place to learn a quality shoulder/knee/spine exam.

[primadonna22274]

I didn't do an ortho rotation and subsequently learned most of my acute ortho in the ED ;)

Plenty of chronic ortho in FM/IM....

[EMEDPA]

It must depend on the rotation; I learned a lot on my ortho rotation, both on ED consults and in clinic. We did a lot of splinting/casting in the clinics, and it was a good place to learn a quality shoulder/knee/spine exam.

My ortho rotation was all clinic, no o.r. or er coverage. mostly chronic back pain and pre-op knee exams. all my reductions, tendon lac repairs, etc were on my er rotations(3)

[medic25]

My ortho rotation was all clinic, no o.r. or er coverage. mostly chronic back pain and pre-op knee exams. all my reductions, tendon lac repairs, etc were on my er rotations(3)

 

Bummer; that would be pretty low-yield for the ED. I did my ortho rotation at a county hospital/level 1 trauma center. We did a bunch of OR cases, lots of good ED cases on consults, floor management and off-service consults, along with clinic follow-ups which involved replacing the splints and casts on a lot of the patients.

[NoClinic4Me]

Ortho and cards.

 

Yep. That's what I did.

 

Pat

[EMEDPA]

Bummer; that would be pretty low-yield for the ED. I did my ortho rotation at a county hospital/level 1 trauma center. We did a bunch of OR cases, lots of good ED cases on consults, floor management and off-service consults, along with clinic follow-ups which involved replacing the splints and casts on a lot of the patients.

I was an er tech for 5 yrs before becoming a medic so already had the splinting down. didn't do a single splint on ortho. mostly just listened to folks whine about chronic pain.

[dhmiles]

Thanks again for the input. I have access to a great peds em rotation so I think I am going to utilize that. Now I have to decide between ortho or cards.... What type of cards rotation would you recommend? Clinic, hospital, surg..... just trying to increase my skill set.

[EMEDPA]

Thanks again for the input. I have access to a great peds em rotation so I think I am going to utilize that. Now I have to decide between ortho or cards.... What type of cards rotation would you recommend? Clinic, hospital, surg..... just trying to increase my skill set.

hospital based cards maybe with some interventional if you can find it. clinic will be more like a primary care rotation so best to go for the high yield hospital stuff.