Emergency Medicine Elective

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Hi folks,

I've been a 'lurker' on this list for many years now and never found the
need to post. I've got a question though, which you would might be in a
position to help me with!

I'm going into my last year of undergraduate medicine in September. I'm very
interested in Emergency Medicine, Trauma Surgery and Critical Care. To this
end I've been trying to do electives in these areas, both for the clinical
skills I'd acquire and (to be honest!) to give the old CV a boost.

I did a fantastic elective in Trauma Surgery last year in South Africa - it
was everything I could have wished for. I basically functioned at the level
of a subintern, and got as many procedures and surgeries as I could have
hoped for. In short, I did loads and learnt loads.

This summer, I was thinking about doing an elective in Trauma Surgery again,
but a second one might be overkill, so I've decided to do one in Emergency
Medicine (especially considering I'll be doing my finals in eight months,
and any medicine I learn will be directly relevant). I'm keen to do another
very hands-on elective where I'll have a good bit of supervised autonomy,
and hopefully get another great hands-on experience like I did last year.
To this end, I've been looking at various 'sub-internships' in Emergency
Medicine in the USA - they seem to offer what I'm looking for.

The USA, as it turns out, is a bureaucratic nightmare to get an elective
organised in. (I also don't have the USMLE Step I exam done, which is a bit
of a pain in the arse, as most places require it). I've been given the run
around for months now, and I thought I had one sorted which only recently
fell through. This has left me at a bit of a dead end - I need to do my
elective during my summer break in July or August, and it's only about 7
weeks until July 1st, almost too short notice to get something organised.

I've applied to the program at Harvard in Boston, which in fairness looks
cool but at $3,100 is exorbitantly expensive. I also had my eye on a great
elective at Temple in Philadelphia but they don't take foreign medical
students.

Which is where one of the readers might (hopefully) be able to help. Do you
know of any good sub-internship style elective in EM anywhere in the world
where I might be able to get in for this summer? I realise this is primarily
a surgical list, but given your close collaboration with Emergency
Departments, plus the chance that there are a few Emergency Physicians
reading, I said I'd chance my arm.

Thanks for all replies in advance, and apologies for the long-winded email!

Patrick

• Previous message: OT to Tim Coats
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