Away Rotations: Antonio Igbokidi, MS4, Shares Experiences at Columbia University, UCLA and UT-Southwestern

FORT WORTH – Each year as Fall arrives, fourth-year medical students all over the United States are finishing up their away rotations and the interviewing cycle for Graduate Medical Education (GME)/residency positions begins. Those four-week auditions during away rotations carry a huge weight as they interview residency slots at hospitals or healthcare centers in the U.S.  

While away rotations are not required to apply to a residency program, they can give medical students an opportunity to distinguish themselves from others in hopes of making a lasting impression on residency directors.   

Antonio Igbokidi 

Hometown: Little Rock, Arkansas 

Classification: MS-4 

Medical Specialty: Psychiatry 

Away Rotations: New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center, University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) Medical Center and UT Southwestern Medical Center  

Competing to become a physician in three of the biggest metropolitan cities in America such as New York City, Los Angeles and Dallas-Fort Worth is a tall task for almost any medical student.  

Antonio Igbokidi, MS-4 at Anne Burnett Marion School of Medicine at Texas Christian University, was up for the challenge.

“I think this part is so surreal,” Igbokidi said. “This is the part that we’ve worked our whole lives to get towards and it’s fun.” 

Igbokidi was born to Nigerian parents and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas. He is hoping to become a psychiatrist when Match Day rolls around in March 2024. He did away rotations at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center, University of California (UCLA) Medical Center and UT Southwestern Medical Center. 

His immersion into psychiatry began early on at the Burnett School of Medicine at TCU in 2020. He credited the medical school’s Longitudinal Integrated Clerkship (LIC) curriculum with getting him and his classmates in front of patients from the outset of their education.  

“A big thing about psychiatry is feeling comfortable enough to establish that rapport with a patient,” Igbokidi said. “Seeing patients early on in my psychiatry outpatient clinic and in the inpatient hospitalization times provided me this confidence and calmness with patients.”  

Students are partnered with a preceptor in their first year, begin following patients, and learn how comprehensive care works.  

In their second year, students get 10 weeks of inpatient hospital immersions and 40 weeks of clinical ambulatory rotations in 8 medical specialties (Emergency Medicine, Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, Obstetrics & Gynecology, Neurology, Pediatrics, Psychiatry and Surgery). In their third year, students continue to participate in comprehensive care of patients alongside a dedicated preceptor in those same medical specialties. 

Igbokidi was able to spend a lot of time working with adolescents at John Peter Smith (JPS) Hospital in Fort Worth’s Medical Innovation District (MID) alongside his preceptor long before his away rotations began. 

“He was really big on me getting experience in a variety of different settings,” Igbokidi said.  

His preceptor, along with other child psychiatrists, let Igbokidi work with adolescents as early as his second year of medical school. During that time, he learned how pharmacology works hand-in-hand with treating patients. The Empathetic Scholar® curriculum at the medical school set him up for success during his away rotations, Igbokidi added. 

“I felt more sure and that gave me more time to focus on the small things the interpersonal things,” Igbokidi said.  

That level of comfort and familiarity working with patients during medical school made his away rotation experiences in the nation’s biggest cities much more exciting.  

“From where I started to seeing the transition in myself is such a magical thing,” Igbokidi said. “I’m ready to go into Match Day and seeing where I match for residency and ultimately seeing my story unfold even more.”