Elective

Finally we got our elective & vacation allocation for next yr..which is our final yr...
I can't believe how fast time flies...I'm almost there..but I still don't know anything...please don't ask me any medical questions..I'm the worst med student ever alive...

I should first explain how our rotations in final year works...we have 7 rotations altogether...each is of 6 weeks duration..(6wks X 7 =42wks)..out of the 7 rotations, one is for elective & one is for vacation(yahoo!!)...elective is something that u can do anywhere in the world...

As a guide to you readers and myself:
Rot 1: 25/01 - 05/03
Rot 2: 08/03 - 16/04
Rot 3: 19/04 - 28/05
Rot 4: 31/05 - 09/07
Rot 5: 12/07 - 20/08
Rot 6: 23/08 - 01/10
Rot 7: 04/10 - 12/11

In previous years, Monash gave students the chance to choose when they want their vacation to be (not every requests are fulfilled)..most people would want their vacation to be around rotation 4, 5 & 6 which is in the middle of the yr...starting from my batch, we no longer given the opportunity to choose...instead, the university will allocate our vacation & elective as a 12-week block (6wks+6wks) and we would have the freedom as to when we would like to do our 6 weeks elective as long as it is within that 12 week period..

I am allocated to have my elective on rotation 1 & my vacation is on rotation 7 which isn't what I wished for...I would prefer my vacation and/or elective to be around july, august, sept (rot 5 & 6) so that I will be home when my sister is on her summer break...apart from the fact that Eid also falls at that time(It has been 4 yrs since I last celebrate Eid with my family in Malaysia)!

I'm looking for someone to swap but I'm sure no one would give away their rot 5 & 6...I might be able to swap with someone who gets rot 2 &3 or 3 & 4..but I'm not sure if that's a better choice than my rot 1 & 7..

Next question is where should I do my elective? Sabah? Sarawak? Terengganu? JB?IJN?...
mmmm...Fiji?Tahiti?UK?Indonesia?Cambodia?NZ?Alice Spring?....Let's not make things more complicated, focus on Malaysia...I'm penniless!!

Who should I go with??alone?(I might found someone if I were to go by myself...maybe some single intern or HMO or consultant??(no2...))...with someoneelse??but whom??

Which specialty I'd like to focus on? Plastic surgery? Paeds surgery? Infectious disease? gen med? or if I wanna go to IJN..I should consider cardiology? cardiothoracic surgery? paeds cardio surg?





While I spent my night thinking of my elective...what I should actually be thinking is how am I gonna pass Children Health first...there won't be any electives if I can't get through 4th yr...

but still, we should organised the elective ourselves...n it may take months to get an approval from the institution...we can't wait till 4th yr is over before we start planning...

Any inputs??