Question about Pre-Med 1/residencies/loans

[WillTransferToSaba]

My friend brought up a very valid point which I wish to share with you guys. He actually e-mailed MUA admissions about it, so I will just copy and paste it here:
" Hello. My name is Michael and I am currently a New York college student. I am highly interested in your premed program for September 2009, but am hesitant for one main reason.
I am only interested in Neurology and my friend said if that’s the case going to the premed program in September 2009 would cause me a one year delay. This is because September ‘09 would mean I would start Basic Sciences in May ’10. That means I would only start clinical rotations in January ’12, and only finish REQUIRED rotations, much less a neurology elective, by November ’12, which is basically the time you have to apply for residencies to make it on time for the September ’13 residency.
Since this is the case, my friend says that I would certainly not be able to get a Neurology residency unless I wait a year, and might have problems getting ANY residency except for: Internal, OB/Gyn, Pediatrics, Surgery, or Psychiatry. I told him this isn’t true, it matters more that you do very well on your USMLE I and have at least some clinical experience. Do you have any more information on this? Thank you very much for any help."
Does anyone have an answer to this? Because we're basically in an identical situation except '08 instead of '09, and I don't want to lose a year for no reason!
Also, in regards to the loan situation, I see that MUA has finalized a deal with Ed-Invest. Any information on when we can start applying for this? Thanks for any help.

[strides]

I was actually worried about the same....its true..we will lose an entire year....people who have been in a similar situation have told me that you could use that time to study for your USMLE exams or MCC exams, do research ..etc.

not much of a choice we have.

[aurous]

I was concerned about this too but there are some other things to consider....

- time needed to study for Step1, step 2 cs, etc - people take a couple of weeks at the very least, I'm sure it will end up being more like 4 - 8 weeks to study so we can rock it

- how our rotations are set up - we really have no idea if we are going to be able to schedule all our rotations back to back, I guess depending on how willing you are to move and how important it is to you to have a greenbook rotation, it could take exactly 72 weeks or most likely a bit longer

For me, even though I really would like to be done sooner than later, it's nice to know that with the extra time I have, I can study longer and I can try and set up my rotations in the same area.

[WillTransferToSaba]

While having more time to study is nice, it is still absurd losing a whole year. Isn't one of the big selling points of the pre-med program to NOT lose any more time?
Let's break this down a bit. People who start med school in the U.S. will start med school in September and start clinicals the September 2 years after that. We will lined up with rotations exactly as they are except 4 months ahead. Could those 4 months really cost us in applying?
I guess the real question is: is finishing your mandatory rotations absolutely REQUIRED before applying for a residency? If not, I can always nail the Step 1 (theoretically), and apply to the easiest residency to get into, say Internal medicine, in September (even though all requireds aren't done yet) and then transition to an opthalmological, neurological or radiological program (since all of these residencies require a preliminary year beforehand.)
If it is required that you have those 5 rotations done before applying though, we're gonna lose a year.