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Edict

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Edict last won the day on March 23

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  1. I would just be there to listen to them, you don't need to say anything.
  2. It really depends on the specialty, would you mind sharing which specialty it was?
  3. Also, just remember that cardiology training typically requires at least 1 year of fellowship maybe 2 or even 3 afterwards (if you want more competitive higher paid jobs/subspecialties or desirable locations). A lot of these fellowships don't pay very much if at all and expect you to locum to keep yourself afloat.
  4. Generally speaking programs in smaller centers like Queens are going to fit those criteria a bit more.
  5. I don't think this is necessarily true, but to answer your question I do believe people are able to do resp and then critical care in 3 years instead of 2. It usually involves using elective time to fullfill the core requirements and its usually done in discussion with your program director.
  6. As long as someone is going to present it or it is going to be put up as a poster in the conference then it counts, but when you list author names, usually you will put a (presenter) in brackets behind whoever ended up presenting the abstract. You should still bold your own name though.
  7. I wouldn't listen to what your vice dean said, they may not be in touch with the actual admissions process for residency. Programs are going to look at your application holistically, taking into account everything else you have done. Usually, programs that look at your application holistically will treat you the same as any other applicant, because they understand why you took a year out. Anyone who knows med school knows these programs are ruthless, i've seen school admin force a student to give up a valuable two week elective because they missed 2 call shift on a rotation. A lot of programs don't ever look at the transcript at all because every med school is so different in the way they report a transcript, that they find it useless to try and interpret it.
  8. Just put yourself in their shoes, what would make you think someone wants to come to your program?
  9. To each their own of course, but I did say that the job market is as good as it will get for a while. The surgical job market will never equal that of most other specialties because surgical jobs require a lot of resources like OR time and hospital facilities that are limited by government funding. On top of that there are many international fellows waiting in the wings to take a job, so even if we train fewer residents, it doesn't mean that the job market will open up. With that being said, to me, 2 years of fellowship versus 1 is no real difference. We never fault a student from taking a gap year, or a student from choosing a 4 year vs 3 year med school. One could argue a 2 year fellowship affords increased skills and potentially a better job, it is actually not a bad investment of time at all. I understand why people want to finish asap, especially if they are non-trad. However, the further you go out from school the more you realize that work is fluid and set structures are no longer a big deal. Other industries don't have these expectations like us, we don't really care if it takes a law associate 7 or 8 years to make partner, in fact we probably don't even know what the standard really is. It really is the same for residency/fellowship too. What I believe matters more is what you actually do day to day and whether or not you enjoy it, it really is the journey not the destination.
  10. The job market is not likely to get any better than it is now in surgery. The last of the boomer generation is retiring within the next 5 years. Unclear what this means for anyone considering entering training in the next few years, but as the population of Canada keeps growing, I imagine certain specialties will continue to be busy. Ortho job market is pretty decent right now, most people do 1-2 years of fellowship but most if not all find jobs. Neuro job market is pretty good as well, not as clear on the job market but a lot of neurosurgeons are choosing to work in the US as well. Some programs are hiring non-Canadians on staff in academic centers, which is a sign that job market is pretty good for Canadians (i.e. they are getting jobs they want). Biggest caveat in surgery is, no R1 is guaranteed a job, medical school does not prepare you to be a surgeon, so even when someone says the job market is good, it doesn't mean everyone who enters residency will be able to obtain a good job. Programs will hire international fellows into attending positions before they hire a local grad who they do not believe would make a good surgeon in their program. I recommend doing it if you want to and worry about the job market later. Nothing can predict the job market in 7 years when you finish.
  11. I think if you express your interest in learning in your personal statement or through some courses in your CV it could help. As an aside, I do think you should think about why McGill? Where you do residency is often where you can find work, doing residency as an anglophone at McGill isn't as good of a strategy since it limits your job options in Quebec. If you are an anglophone without much interest in learning French, I would honestly suggest sticking to other programs. Residency is hard enough, I feel going to McGill (some patients will still prefer French potentially) gives you added work and challenges that if you don't enjoy tackling I would feel like would end up becoming a burden.
  12. Depends on the specialty probably to some extent, if you do a specialty with a lot more patient interaction, then more so than if you were to do one with less. I know people who've matched McGill Rads without speaking French. Do you have ties to Montreal?
  13. Some great points here, and my opinion on the topic is more nuanced from my experiences in the US. You do make a great point about insurance companies acting as a sort of gatekeep in the US system vs how our government is acting as our gatekeep in the Canadian system. The way I see it, the insurance companies have certain advantages as gatekeepers. They tend to be good at stopping expensive unnecessary things, like brand name medications, very expensive tests or procedures etc. However, a few points. One is that doctors and hospitals have their own administrators who try to get around the insurance companies by overselling or overstating the nature of the problem. One example is the "high risk sexual behavior" diagnosis on EMR when trying to get STD testing, which has made its rounds on social media. The other is that when insurance doesn't cover, i.e. when it comes to the deductible, doctors have free reign to overtest. I have seen normal findings reported as abnormal on imaging imo just to justify a more expensive test. The government of course has its strengths. They can just make things unavailable through regulation, whereas insurance companies will just offer it at exorbitant price. They can put hard limits on the # of procedures that can be done when it is new and investigational, and they can determine when and where procedures and tests can be performed. However, the government, like you said, has a hard time stopping doctors from overtesting as well, if the doctor wants to order a test, the government won't stop them and there is a lot of waste that goes on. Many tests are ordered twice when a patient switches hospitals, like echos, for example. The biggest difference though between insurance vs government, is that the insurance will treat the wealthier person better than the poorer person. If you have money, you get a better plan, get to choose your doctor, shop around, avoid a wait etc. However, if you don't have insurance or are on a bare bones one like Medicaid, you will be limited to doctors who accept Medicaid, safety net hospitals etc. which are less well staffed, offer older and more outdated tests/procedures etc. The government for the most part, treats everyone the same, if you have connections you might skip a line but money can't just buy you a procedure. A huge reason the US has such an expensive healthcare system, is because its adversarial system essentially creates jobs to dispute just about everything. Everyone is fighting everyone for a slice of the pie. In Canada, its quite frankly a top down bureaucratic system, its lean but its also slow. It responds to changes like a snail and lets small parties make a killing off of loopholes, but it is also efficient because there is a lot internal fighting over resources. The way I see it, theres no simple solution, if we go private in Canada, healthcare costs overall will go up, wait times will go down but they will go down faster for the wealthy than the poor.
  14. Why do you want to do medicine, computer science seems like a fantastic field.
  15. I would say most surgical specialties have reasonable job markets these days, in the sense that this is as good as it will get, the job market may actually tighten up again in 10 years when the baby boomers are finished retiring. I would not go into any surgical specialty without at least mentally presuming you will do a fellowship and possibly a masters. If it turns out you don't need it great, but most people do end up doing a fellowship and possibly a masters, its bas the norm. Even if you don't, you probably end up locuming for a while, so everyone has to pay their dues somehow.
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