 So today we're going to talk about arguably one of the most important rotations that you may not even know about that you may have to do in medical school. Let's get into it. Hey friends, welcome back to the channel. In case you're new here, my name is Lex, I'm an internal medicine physician and today we are talking about the infamous away rotation. Now if you're not familiar with what an away rotation was, you're not alone, I definitely was in your shoes. And as a fun fact, something I don't think I've ever shared on this channel is that I was actually applying for an away rotation because before I went down the internal medicine route, I actually thought I was going to be an emergency medicine doctor. And that happens to be a field where an away rotation is recommended. You went through the application process that will break down for you step by step later in today's episode and actually got into a program. Now ultimately I made the pivot to go to internal medicine instead, but this entire episode will be relevant to you, especially if you're considering competitive specialties or at least have the idea that you may be wanting to go to one. You're not quite sure, but it's arguably one of the most important rotations that you have to do, especially if you're considering a competitive specialty. So today we're going to break down everything from exactly what an away rotation is, which feels actually may require it as well as a step by step on exactly how to do the application process. So first let's talk about what an away rotation is and why they matter. So basically this is exactly what it sounds like. As a fourth year medical student, you travel a way to another medical school or another institution and do a rotation in a specialty that you're interested in. Now these away rotations are typically anywhere from two to four weeks. Now students will typically do these rotations anywhere from April all the way to August or September of the year that they're about to apply to residency. So for example, as I'm making this video, we're currently in March. So we're about to have fourth year medical students who are going to find out literally in about a week where they're going to go to residency for the next three to seven years of their life. But we're also having third year medical students who are about to be fourth years and are considering what they want to do and what residency they want to apply to. Now for those third year medical students, during that time span anywhere from April to May, all the way up to August, even going into October, students have the potential to do an away rotation in those competitive specialties. And they matter for a variety of reasons for both the student as well as an institution that you'll be doing your rotation at. Now from a student's perspective, if you are applying to a competitive specialty, you want to ideally increase your chances to go to a program that you're really interested in, maybe for geographic or competitive reasons by ideally doing a rotation there. So they get some face time and interactions with you. That way I understand this person may be a good fit for a program. And for you as a student, you also have the chance of becoming familiar with something that could be your future home for the next few years, including just the geographical location, the facilities, the faculties, other residents that may be working with you as colleagues if you happen to get into that program. And one of the biggest advantages of an away rotation is that if you're accepted to do an away rotation at an institution, it increases your chances of being offered an interview. Often it's very common to say that if you had done an away rotation, you're guaranteed an interview during that next application cycle, thus increasing your chances of matching to at least a program, if not that one. And on the flip side, from an institution's perspective, ultimately they want future doctors who want to be at their program. And they get a good feel of who you are, how you work, how smart you are, how you interact with patients, other faculty members, and ultimately if you're a good fit for them. You essentially are doing a very prolonged interview compared to the typical 20, 30 minute residency interviews that you do during an application cycle. Now you get two to four weeks for people to really know who you are, how you work, and what you're all about. So next let's talk about what specialties actually require an away rotation. Now to keep this simple, the majority of specialties that you may consider to be competitive likely also recommend or even require an away rotation. If you're guys interested in the most competitive specialties, we've actually done a full breakdown here. I'll link that down below in the description. But common examples for specialties include the field of dermatology, ophthalmology, orthopedic surgery, plastic surgery, neurosurgery, ENT, radiology, and even IR programs. And as I mentioned earlier in that episode, even the field of emergency medicine, which is what I was considering, actually recommend that you do another rotation at another institution because it actually requires two letters of recommendation, one from your home institution, one from your way of rotation, both essentially vouching for you on your ability to become an EM doc. Now those are the common specialties that require one, but you may be asking, what about my field? Maybe if I wanna go into internal medicine or family medicine or pediatrics or fill in the blank, do I actually have to do an away rotation? The answer is probably not, but if you have very specific preferences of where you wanna be geographically or you really wanna go into a competitive specialty within your field. For example, if I really wanted to go to Harvard or Yale or fill in the blank, John Hopkins for internal medicine, then maybe I wanted to do an away rotation there to increase my chances of going there. Now those weren't necessarily my ambitions when I was applying to residency and I still happened to get into a really great program. But if you have very specific preferences of where you wanna be geographically, what program institution is essentially what you want your life to look like for the next several years and ideally will shape and direct where you live ultimately as an attending, then an away rotation may be something you consider. Now the part about today's episode that I'm most excited about is actually explaining step by step exactly how to apply for an away rotation. Now if you're not at that point of your journey where you're getting ready to apply for an away rotation, basically you're not a third or fourth year medical student, go ahead and just bookmark and save this video for future reference in case you need it and go ahead and skip to the important things to consider that we'll talk about to summarize the rest of this video. One important pearl and piece of advice before we get into the step by step is to know to do this as early as possible. If you know you're going into any of those competitive specialties that we broke down, it's very important to go ahead and start this process early, usually around February, March and April of your third year of medical school. If you're late, that's okay, just get right into it. The reason is is because the amount of programs that are available is very little. You can imagine lots of students that are also wanting to go into these competitive specialties are also applying and sometimes they're just limited spots that don't work with your schedule and your rotations that you just have to do for your institution. So again, do this as early as possible. I definitely did when I was applying to emergency medicine, and it was still very stressful. So go ahead and try your best to do this as quickly as possible. But now let's get into the step by step and we're actually gonna have one of our MD journey team members, one of our study coaches, Dallin, who's a fourth year medical student as I'm making this episode going into dermatology, who's gonna walk you through the same step by step process that he did to apply to Dallin. So let's transition to Dallin to see breaks down the step by steps on how to apply for no way of rotation. Hey everyone, so I'm gonna be talking about how to apply to away rotations and the program that you use to apply to the majority of away rotations. So you use something called the VSLO system and if you just Google VSLO student, Google should take you to the right spot. You can click here on visiting student and learning opportunities. So this is a program linked with double AMC that allows you to streamline back application process to multiple different electric rotations or away rotations and sign in. I already have an account so I can just go ahead and sign in, but if you don't have an account, you can create an account right here. So I'll just go ahead and sign in and this will take you to the dashboard. I think it's important to make sure that all of your personal information is updated and that it was transferred over from double AMC correctly and that your home institution contact information all looks correctly. Next, it's important to know where you want to do an away rotation. In order to look at which programs offer away rotations, you can click find electives. And for this video, we're just going to look for an away rotation in dermatology at the University of Utah. So there's a lot of different filters you can use here. I'm just gonna click specialty and go into dermatology and then city, I know it's in Salt Lake City apply filters and it'll come up right here that there is actually an away rotation for dermatology at the University of Utah and that it is a four week long rotation. You can click learn more. This is probably the most important page that you're going to find about each program because it tells you everything you need to have in order to apply to this rotation. So for example, University of Utah wants you to have a transcript, CV, your resume, a photograph. Most programs actually want these and then some will ask for a personal statement. Most ask for a letter of intent asking, why do you want to do a rotation at our program? Others will actually ask you to have a letter of recommendation usually from one of the faculty at your home program. And then I think, I mean also what's important is it shows what dates they offer away rotation. So make sure that the dates that they offer rotations align with your home program schedule and then you can fit it in to your rotation schedule. I had it saved. So I clicked on save but this will say save right here. You can save it and go to save delectives and it'll be right there in your save delectives. The way that you add all of these different documents is here you click my documents. And you can upload all the documents that you need to have in order to apply downloaded right here. You can upload them. So very simple, nothing too difficult. Once you are actually applying for these programs, you add the electives by going to add electives and clicking on that and here are all your saved electives, very easy and streamlined process. Once you apply, you can click on tracking and this will show you all of the programs that you've applied to, all of the programs that are looking at your application that are under review. And then for me, I applied to an away rotation at Geisel School of Medicine for dermatology and I applied to multiple time slots in order to increase my chances of getting an away rotation there. As you can see that I did not get into this time slot but I did for this time slot. So it is important to apply to multiple time slots in order to increase your chances of getting an away rotation. But in a nutshell, that is how you apply for away rotations using the VSLO system. If the program is not in find electives, usually that means that they don't use VSLO and they may use their own type of system in order to apply and in order to know if they do offer, just check out their home program website and you should be able to either reach out to a coordinator that could help you or they may have information on their website. But all in all, that's how you apply through the VSLO system. Very simple, very streamlined and I think it's very worth applying to away rotations especially for those competitive residencies. Thank you. So hopefully you guys enjoyed that step by step on down and breaking down exactly how to apply for an away rotation. Again, if you're not at that point in your journey, go ahead and just save and bookmark this video. Let's go ahead and talk about important things to consider for your away rotation. And number one is that the programs that you may be considering may not be on the same schedule at your home institution. So for example, if you do rotations on a four week basis, where that first week starts and where the last week ends is basically where you have a spot to do a rotation. But if for some reason, another institution is staggered where their rotation starts where you're kind of in the middle of a rotation at your home institution it may not be possible to kind of figure that out. Or maybe you have to work to squeeze in a vacation where you can still do it. But if for some reason your home institution and the institution you want to do a rotation on have staggered schedules, it may be very difficult to fit that in. Number two is because these spots are very limited as well as competitive, it's important to keep your schedule very flexible and open when you're considering these rotations. In fact, when I applied emergency medicine I had mentally prepared myself to have no away rotation anywhere from as early as July all the way it is late as September. I managed to get one at that sweet spot in August for emergency medicine but I had to be ready to basically be able to shift and adjust my schedule depending on when I got that acceptance. This also helps increase your chances that you actually get a spot at the program that you're interested in and thus again increases your chances at getting that interview and that's matching. Finally, it's important to mention that doing away rotation is by no means cheap. Not only do you have to pay for the application fees and that can vary depending on how many programs you apply to, but also just the fee of getting to that institution traveling especially if it happens to be in a different state or across country. And then of course the living cost for those two to four weeks that you'll be at that rotation it easily gets very expensive and this doesn't even include the money you're about to guarantee spend on all those applications for residency as well as traveling for those interviews. So it's very important before it gets to this phase to save as much as possible but also be very critical on the decisions that you're making of is this a program that I really want to go to or does it just seem nice to say I went to X program for an away rotation? If you have no desires of going there, first of all you're just taking up a spot that somebody else would take but two you're spending money that you could either have used on your residency application or have spent two to four weeks at another institution that would have been a better fit for you. But that guys is the breakdown of exactly what our way of rotation is as well as how to apply. If you have any questions make sure you drop them in the comment section down below. Happy to answer them either in a future video or in your comments individually. Now, if you're early on your medical journey and you want pretty much all of the pieces of advice I wish somebody had just given it to me on my first day go ahead and check out their free Med School Success Handbook it is a document that I'm updating on a weekly basis absolutely free of tips on how to study better be more productive. Ultimately get to this phase in your journey where you're applying residency and you just now like, I got this. If you want that level of confidence go ahead and check out all those tips. And if you want the step-by-step approach of how to just crush it during your first year residency as a first year doctor go ahead and check out our highly reviewed program the Intern Survival Guide which I'll link down below as well. But as always my friends if you enjoyed this episode go ahead and support the channel but just hit that like button really quickly hitting that subscribe button and notification bell to be notified when new videos like this come out and checking out this entire playlist that we made for you on everything you need to know about how to just crush it as a brand new doctor in residency. As always my friends hopefully we were a little helped to you guys on your journey. Thanks for being a part of ours. We'll see you guys in the next one. Peace.