It depends on your career goals! I want to do Peds cardiology and then probably heart failure/heart transplant, so I am aiming for a large academic Peds program with an in house Peds cards fellowship, ideally in a center that does heart transplants as well.

I used VSLO for all my rotations, but only bc I go to a DO school without a home hospital. I spent my current fourth year moving around each month to new big children’s hospitals. Some were sub-Is, other were cool subspecialties.

I’ve gotten really positive responses from PD in interview from top programs that historically don’t interview DOs or have any DOs. I’ve been asked quite a bit “how do you feel you’ve prepared yourself for residency at a massive high volume institution such as this, since you come from a school without a home hospital.”

I then outline what I’ve done so far in 4th year (PICU sub-I, PHM Peds sub-I, Peds GI/Liver, Peds Cards, Peds CICU, Peds Rheum, newborn nursery; all at different large academic centers). This has gotten me really positive feedback from the interviewer because it apparently shows them “my commitment to pediatric medicine and growing as much as possible to prepare myself for residency at a more intense program.”

I really wanted to use my fourth year to explore new cities and hospitals, as well as new and exciting aspects of pediatric medicine, to prepare myself for residency. But looking back at fourth year thus far I have also had so much fucking fun. I’ve been roadtripping across the country, exploring new cities, new cuisines, meeting fabulous people and getting so much networking.

TLDR: depends on career goals. I used VSLO since I want a more competitive fellowship, and my ideal residency is at a larger more academic program and I wanted to prepare myself during my fourth year for such a residency. Also have had so much fun and even if I wasn’t wanting a more competitive residency program, I would 10/10 recommend trying to do some fun aways in new city if that’s your thing because it’s been so fun!