Birdy

I'm fairly active across multiple platforms and it's generally been a very positive thing for me throughout my training. It has helped me set up electives and make connections with some fantastic docs. That said, I think Mac faculty in particular have a generally stronger social media presence than may be common at other schools which is part of why it has been such a positive thing. That said, if you are prone to saying unwise things online and are not prepared to be careful about what you say, professional social media may not be for you. It is by no means essential.

Being average amongst a group of high achieving individuals is a good thing. Meeting expectations means you're meeting expectations. This is not something to be stressed about.

My residency has 24 hour in house overnight call only on OB/Gyn. Otherwise your call is done at 11pm with no post-call day unless you get stuck at the hospital until at least 1am managing a sick patient. There are overnight shifts on emerg and evening (5pm- midnight) admissionist shifts, but nothing 24 hours. We do have home call when we're on FM blocks whenever our primary preceptor is on call, but it's generally pretty infrequent and it's very rare to get woken up at night. I actually did not know this about my program's call schedule until after I'd matched there and I have been loooooving it.

Yup. I'm planning to do hopefully 6-8 emerg shifts a month and maybe practice share (eg. 1-2 days a week) a family practice and then do some sexual health clinic work regularly. Depends what/when I can sort those things out and what's available wherever I settle. I want one foot in the hospital and one in the clinic since I know full time clinic would burn me out.

Thank you!

This was posted a couple months ago but I thought I'd chime in; Short answer: depends on the program. For *most* programs, if you finish between July and December, you can apply for a 'late start' but this isn't true of all of them. Some of the EM programs, for instance, specifically do not allow off-cycle starts whereas a couple do for July-Dec completions. I finish in March due to mat leave, so I'm just applying for the next year. I could have taken a shorter mat leave and finished in December then applied for an off-cycle start, but that actually would have limited the number of programs I could have applied to (plus I wasn't sure I wanted to apply for an R3 at the time.) It's better overall for me to apply to start on-cycle in July. It just means I have 3.5 months to fill with locuming which will be a nice way to pocket some cash before going back for another year at a resident salary.

There is a re-entry process but it's really hard to get access to.

I went through med school with a family (had 3 kids by the end of med school; have 4 now) and came out with $250k debt. Obviously my cost of living is significantly higher than a typical med trainee's would be.

Who else is applying this year? And for what? I'm applying FM-EM, which is a decision I made all of four months ago so have not really developed the strongest application. Quite excited to get this part over and done with though! Curious who else is applying, and if perhaps we can all brainstorm answers to questions about the application because I feel like a final year med student again, agonizing over what goes where.

Which can become incredibly amusing when people who didn’t think to add buttons, clips, or other personalization to their bags get mixed up.

Honestly, that’s a big perk of the bags in general. You can identify your classmates easily from down the street and can see if a classmate is rotating in the hospital with you. And come CaRMS time it’s a good icebreaker in the airport (if we go back to in person interviews.) Though as a Mac grad, is and Calgary students were the only purple bags in the airports on our CaRMS cycle so the other med students thought we were on electives instead of interviews.

Clusters of 2015 matriculants were called grapes because of our purple bags. You guys get to be busy bees! I think it’s nice. I’d have been happy with it. The colour is a dandelion yellow. Nice and rich. Dandelions thrive on any surface in any conditions no matter what you do to them. Maybe you guys can be like them.

Nope and I’ve been asking around and contacting MCC. No one is saying anything new about when it’ll be. I graduate in March and would really like it to be over with before then. IMO they should just waive the requirement for this year but that’s probably not happening. I can hope though.

As far as I know, once you pass, you pass.

My family doc doesn’t teach med students or residents which was Important to me. We just found her through a list of family docs taking patients in the area. I did switch to her from a crappy one I had previously and I’m very happy with her care as she’s attentive, evidence-based, and treats me like a knowledgeable patient, but not a colleague. When she’s taking a history or talking to me about medical conditions she does speak to me at my level, but she also makes recommendations and suggests courses of treatment as she would with any patient. She’s careful to remind me that I am not my own doctor, but she also understands that I do have more insight into things and she’ll trust my judgement on exam findings when having a phone visit. She doesn’t just order or prescribe whatever I want unless she agrees with the need for it. I call her Dr. S, not her first name, to maintain a bit of distance. My rheumatologist, though, appointments with her are more relaxed/collegial. She’s about my age, just recently finished fellowship, and has kids with similar concerns to mine. Plus we’re in a Facebook group together and I’ve done a horizontal elective with her. I do call her by her first name but it’s because we’re more peer-ish.