Free time Away rotation?

[free]

How much free time do we typically have on an away? Can expect to be able to work on a manuscript for one of my attendings? Or to go out on the weekend?

[Focus]

Very little but yeah there ate occassional breaks and days off to do some stuff.

[Percheron]

(05-21-2017, 06:15 PM)free Wrote: How much free time do we typically have on an away? Can expect to be able to work on a manuscript for one of my attendings? Or to go out on the weekend?

Sub-Is are hard months. It is bad to plan to do anything of significance on them. You will work easily 80-100 hours /week or more. I found it hard to even adequately write my personal statement during a sub I (I also had put too much stock in my personal statement knowing what I know now).

If you are not the first person in the hospital on the neurosurgery service and the last one out while you are on Sub - I... your interest level and dedication will be questioned. I am not saying that is right, or a good thing. But it is the way it is. They are audition rotations, and are they are challenging in ways that even very difficult times of junior residency are not, because you can feel the weight of your whole future on almost all of your actions and the impressions you make.

[estheezy]

(05-23-2017, 10:33 PM)Percheron Wrote: Sub-Is are hard months. It is bad to plan to do anything of significance on them. You will work easily 80-100 hours /week or more. I found it hard to even adequately write my personal statement during a sub I (I also had put too much stock in my personal statement knowing what I know now).

If you are not the first person in the hospital on the neurosurgery service and the last one out while you are on Sub - I... your interest level and dedication will be questioned. I am not saying that is right, or a good thing. But it is the way it is. They are audition rotations, and are they are challenging in ways that even very difficult times of junior residency are not, because you can feel the weight of your whole future on almost all of your actions and the impressions you make.

Just wanted to ask about your comment regarding personal statements - do you feel they are not very important in residency applications? I know for my medical school application, the personal statement was a significant factor. I assume they are not as important, but it's interesting to hear it from someone who's gone through the process.

[Focus]

Usually neither a big factor for me

[Guest]

It's variable. Columbia sub-i gives (or used to?) you full weekends off while other places don't give you any off day. Sub-i is harder than internship year. In sub-i, pissing off anyone is a game over and you need to show up before residents and leave after them.

[Percheron]

(05-24-2017, 12:00 AM)estheezy Wrote:

(05-23-2017, 10:33 PM)Percheron Wrote: Sub-Is are hard months. It is bad to plan to do anything of significance on them. You will work easily 80-100 hours /week or more. I found it hard to even adequately write my personal statement during a sub I (I also had put too much stock in my personal statement knowing what I know now).

If you are not the first person in the hospital on the neurosurgery service and the last one out while you are on Sub - I... your interest level and dedication will be questioned. I am not saying that is right, or a good thing. But it is the way it is. They are audition rotations, and are they are challenging in ways that even very difficult times of junior residency are not, because you can feel the weight of your whole future on almost all of your actions and the impressions you make.

Just wanted to ask about your comment regarding personal statements - do you feel they are not very important in residency applications? I know for my medical school application, the personal statement was a significant factor. I assume they are not as important, but it's interesting to hear it from someone who's gone through the process.

Its easier to hurt yourself with a personal statement than it is to set yourself apart in a good way.

If you have a very interesting personal back story or a very unique connection to neurosurgery you can use that. Mentioning a particular case that got your attention or convinced you of your commitment to neurosurgery is a common approach, but if done well is a fine way to go. But in general, I recommend the following guidlines:

DO NOT spend the entire statement just saying how awesome neurosurgery is (your audience is aware of this already and it tells them nothing about you). DO NOT use the entire statement to say why you chose it as a specialty (don't worry, everyone will ask you the dreaded "why neurosurgery?" during interviews anyway... about 75 times over) DO NOT try to be creative or fancy unless this is really your strong suit and you know it. DO NOT have any grammatical errors. DO NOT go crazy on using a thesaurus to sound extra-intelligent. Violating these guidelines will leave you sounding generic, sloppy, immature.

DO mention some reason of why you think YOU personally are right for the specialty. DO mention something about yourself that cannot be gained from looking at the rest of your personal statement. DO use your natural tone/voice and not some artificially elevated/intellectual language. DO keep the whole thing as short as you possible can regardless of what approach you take.

Remember that a lot of your interviewers will never even read the personal statement