December is a good time to start thinking about away rotations and to start researching programs that you may want to spend a month at. EMRA provides a great resource to start this search with the “EMRA Map”. Follow this link and change the “Residency” designation in the top left hand corner to “Clerkship” to see all of the available the away rotations available to medical students. First, pay special attention to whether each program uses VSAS (or sometimes now called VSLO). Some programs do not use the VSAS application service and will have their own individual requirements and deadlines.
For those that do subscribe to VSAS, most require a record of immunizations, professional headshot, and CV. Some may require letters of recommendations, letters of intent, and up-to-date background checks. Get started on immunizations early! You will likely need titers drawn to confirm immunity. If one of those titers results negative, you will need to redo the vaccination series, which can take a while (I’m looking at you MMR; it takes approximately 6-8 weeks to redo the series and recheck the titer). Waiting last minute to have these titers drawn may cause delays in releasing VSAS application to programs, as they all require the vaccination paperwork to be complete before review. Many programs start opening their VSAS applications around end of March/early April, so attending to vaccinations during December should give you plenty of time to fulfill those requirements. Most students schedule their away rotation sometime during the months of June-August (September at the latest), but try to schedule your home EM rotation before the away.
If there’s a program that you’re interested in for residency, it is often helpful to try and do an away at that program, as it allows you to get a better feel for how the program is structured, and the program will be able to better evaluate your fit as a candidate. Many residents end up matching at programs where they completed an away rotation. If you’re not trying to match at a particular residency program, or do not have a geographic area in mind, I would recommend rotating at a program that differs from your home institution as much as possible. OSU is a very academic program, so to get a different perspective, check out how a county or community program functions. Not only is this good for your own understanding of the different settings that emergency medicine is practiced, but the question “academic, county, or community?” does come up on the interview trail, and it would be great to have firsthand experience to draw from when discussing your views.
Familiarize yourself with the VSAS homepage and browse the available rotation locations here:
The VSLO Program has created a walkthrough of the application process, which can be found here:
Visiting Student Learning Opportunities (VSLO) Essentials
Author: Arthur Broadstock, OSUCOM Class of 2019