Lottery Preferences

After all the hubbub and consternation yesterday, this is what I ended up doing. I ranked my preferences by rotation such that I would lock in a rotation each round. I ranked internal medicine the highest, preferring blocks 3-5; then Ob/Gyn, preferring 3-6; then Surgery, preferring 1, 5, 6; then family medicine, preferring 1, 4, 5; then Pediatrics (preferring 1) and Neurology/Psychiatry (preferring 2). I put in some Salinas and Fresno rotations at the bottom to make sure I didn't bottom out of my list.

It's fairly complicated to explain why I ranked rotations when I did. Basically, I preferred not to start my third year with Medicine (important) or Ob/Gyn (too intense); I'd rather ease in with an "easier" block like Pediatrics. Looking at dates, block 2 is when new residents start and so I preferred not to do procedural specialties Ob/Gyn and Surgery or really important ones to me like Medicine. Lastly, I didn't want to do Medicine block 6 because I felt that it was too late in the year. I sort of wanted to do a 6-week block late in the rotations (such as Ob/Gyn 5) in order to allow me to do a 2-week anesthesia rotation at that time.

Tomorrow, we'll be back to normal blogging.