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peace2014

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  1. This is very well written, hence why LCME diverged. Canadians want to train physicians who practice medicine to serve their communities while a lot of US med schools provide physicians that serve the private sector in numerous ways. I would definitely recommend future students to consider their med schools in both countries carefully. If you just want to be a good physician, Canada should be top choice. However, Harvard or Hopkins will serve a small population of students better and will lead to rewarding careers in many other areas besides seeing patients. Which IMO are areas that are so deemphasized in Canadian schools that sometimes people don't see their values anymore cause we rely on other places to do them.... think about the vaccine development/trials, or new drugs for gene therapy, cancer
  2. The average Canadian and American physician is very similar in quality in terms of providing excellent healthcare, maybe Canadians are even better on average. Just because someone graduated from Harvard doesn't mean they are better at treating diabetes. However, top American schools train high-level physician-scientists that become Nobel Laureates, CEOs, chief medical officers, chief scientific officers, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, leaders in the biotech/pharma/life sciences industry. These few exceptional individuals are really what make medicine great and innovative. Without those exceptional people, people would still be living until 40. Obviously, someone who is ambitious and wants to discover cures, training at MGH is vastly BETTER than NOSM or any Canadian school. The fact that US and Canadian med school no longer recognize each other's training suggests that their values vastly differ now. I hope moving forward, Canadians will keep the innovative aspects of medical training that Americans have (more focus on basic science and less on "innovative" educational strategies). This will hurt MD/pHDs from Canada who wants to do residency at MGH/Hopkins
  3. In US, academic centers can sponsor H1Bs or O-visa and you can maintain that status until you get green card (which depends on which country you were born in or your marriage status, if born in Canada, it wont take long, just ~ 2 years). To be honest, from what I heard/seen (so take this as a VERY small grain of salt), even academic orthopaedic surgeons make A LOT of money relative to Canadian surgeons especially if you do spinal surgery/fellowship. Not to mention, much better location (this cannot be stressed enough), more OR time and better employment opportunities. Definitely worth doing the USMLEs and move. To add, if you are a new med student and want to become a surgeon, DO THE USMLES!! DO NOT HESITATE. Also, some surgical speciality residencies are NOT interchangeable in US and Canada (e.g. neurosurgery), so consider US residencies as well.
  4. Made a few corrections there... Generally speaking I like Ontario's system of a school for each type of candidate. The high *CARS* in MCATs used to go to Western, High GPAs to Ottawa, High verbal/CASPer to Mac and the *Mysterious holistic* school is Queens and Very high GPA is *Toronto*. Each school has its own criteria but none really looked at the whole package of GPA, MCAT and ECs as a whole, unless US MD schools.
  5. Umm, the list doesn't look so bad, some Mass Gen, BWH. UCSF, Yale on the list. Def better than top Carribean schools. Does McGill really have A LOT of American students or are the medical students there like to apply to US residencies in general?
  6. I think applying to US residencies as CDN Med students are not as easy as we think. First, CaRMs come first, so you automatically get removed from the US match and for most people, they had to take a fairly big risk to rank US programs ONLY. Also, US residency programs value prestige and USMLE scores, so unless you come from a big name med school and totally own the USMLE (which is difficult to study for in CDN schools since they dont teach the material. But honestly, they should and faculty should encourage students to take USMLEs..), your chance IMO are low. We tend to think our med schools are some of the best in the world, but US PDs have a huge bias towards US applicants and they want to see heavy research. Someone should protest to make CaRMs match after NRMP though...
  7. Are people on these forums generally more pessimistic or is dentistry really going downhill from here? Cause you can never trust everything on the internet... I always thought dentists make at least 300K+ Mid career after overhead and is generally a fantastic career despite high tuition fees...
  8. If your passion is medicine, I would also apply broadly to US MD and DO schools. Your chances are way better since you are American, and if you want to come back to Canada to practice, you can still apply to first iteration without significant disadvantages and US residencies without any restrictions (which broaden your choices!! Very important if you want a competitive specialty). If you exclusively want to apply to CDN schools (which I really do not recommend given your background), I would move to Alberta or Saskatchewan... definitely not metro Toronto.
  9. Completely agree, getting US citizenship/green card is a huge hurdle. But let's not forget that there are way more doors that can open for you if you match to a US residency program. More desirable locations to practice, opportunities in industry (pharma, banking, consulting....) not to mention you can still come back to Canada to practice. Either way it is a risk you have to take, the US residency program or stuck in a poor location and staying there for the rest of your life.
  10. Sorry to be blunt, but I find this to be disturbingly impressive. 9 months for a Masters. It takes usually 4 months just to get from submission to acceptance in a decent journal. On top of this, there are so many factors taken into account, it is hard to say which one is easier. That being said, being a high-achiever in high school does not mean you will be good in uni at all. Ontario high schools are extremely variable and due to grade inflation, 90% is much easier now than lets say 5 years ago. Therefore, although health scis have "high" averages and they are very bright, so does at least 75% of people at other life sci/biomed/etc... programs, but only health scis have such a high rate of med school acceptance.
  11. I think the health sci thread comes back very frequently that it is a bird program with it being specially designed to get students into med due to higher GPA, more coaching and better time doing ECs. I personally find it concerning that the program always defend against these claims but it is bluntly obvious to everyone what the program is like. One thing you have to consider is that Mac life sci is always overshadowed by health sci, whether it is opportunities for research, volunteering (I heard the mac childrens hospital favour health scis over others), ease of getting references and many things. I have tons of brilliant friends who did not get into Canadian med schools from life sci program and it is very concerning to me that people who chose a more difficult program (perhaps engineering/or harder sciences) is penalised in our system. But in conclusion, GO TO A SUPER EASY PROGRAM... if you are set in getting into med school here
  12. I do not know if you are a troll or not, but your ECs are very strong and as someone who has such high stats, I find it strange that you have to ask about your chances. Your chances are good across the board.
  13. Hi what are my chances? M.Sc Student GPA: U of T: 3.90 Queens: 3.75 (Last 2 Years in worse) McMaster: 3.75 MCAT: 514 (129/127/130/128) ECs: Lots of research (abstracts published, oral presentation at international conferences, 1 co-author pub in IF>10 journal, 1 in submission, 1 in prep). Awards >$24,000 for grad school. Volunteering ~500 hours (community and clinical based). Mentoring, shadowing and some other small extracurriculars. How are my chances at those Canadian schools? Do I even have a chance at an interview at Mac or Queens? Thanks!
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