WinterCanon

Saskatchewan CC3s are going back to core rotations May 25th. This is quite reasonable if things stay as they are - very few active cases in either Regina or Saskatoon.

For practice: https://ecg.bidmc.harvard.edu/maven/mavenmain.asp ~500 ecgs sorted by difficulty and type, with associated interpretations. For best learning I would recommend fully interpreting each ECG yourself rather than just answering the associated multiple choice question.

I take slight issue to the above - the large majority of lectures in second year are delivered from Saskatoon. Like, I'd guess around 80% last year. Not a huge deal, but if you would be bothered by video-conferenced lectures (with all that that entails) its worth bearing in mind. For me, I chose Saskatoon purely because I didn't want to have to move again after first year.

University of Saskatchewan has cancelled all medical student learning opportunities in the emergency department. This includes core rotations and electives for clerks. Apparently they're working on a plan for the m3s who should be on their core emerg rotation right now...

For those wondering how the waitlists are moving: Status: Accepted off waitlist (Regina) Timestamp: May 23 Geography: OOP Year: Two years through second degree MCAT: 526 GPA: ~3.96 Interview: Pretty terrible TBH. Felt like I was completely unprepared for several of the topics that seemed to be a focus. Good luck to everybody waiting to hear back!

Yeah, there are some brutal courses. Particularly some of the second year science labs are just devastating, and you do see course averages in the low 60s. Personally, I didn't have much difficulty getting a great GPA, but I was coming in after a first degree (in music, so not related, but the added maturity the second time round is a game changer.) For what it's worth, the average student level at Ottawa is noticeably lower than at a school like McGill (my alma mater), so you do have that going for you as far as grades are concerned. I'd try to avoid the mentality that Health Sci would be easier anyhow - objectively, it probably is, but a way way bigger factor is what you're interested in. The only not A+ that I have on my uOttawa transcript was from a determinants of health course that I just couldn't convince myself to care about. In response to Al22 re: research - point taken. My thought was that many of the profs you'll meet in your first and second year are more likely to be doing basic research as opposed to medical related research, and they'll be more on board with taking on a student from their own faculty. That being said, it's a super minor point - if you have good grades and you put just a tiny bit of effort in, Ottawa is a great school to do research at as a undergrad regardless of the department. Lots of programs and room to stand out. I stand by my comment that it is easier to set up research experiences as a science student (biomed, biopharm, etc.) over a health science student.

As somebody who was in Health Science for a year here at UOttawa, the only thing I would point out is how much it is NOT a science degree. You really aren't required to take any hard science courses, and a lot of the curricula is social science. The more medical related courses (anatomy, the first year microbiology) are shared with the nursing students mostly - they're fine, but not especially rigorous. Obviously, how you feel about social science is personal, but even with a pretty heavy liberal arts background, I found a lot of the health sci specific courses to be pretty unscientific. Not always evidence based... Certainly, a biomed degree would be better prep for the MCAT, easier to transfer from into another degree, and probably also have better non-MD job prospects. Also, it may be easier to get research experience in biomed, although a more pure science would be better still in this regard. I'm super super biased, but my take is that having a really rigorous university level background in science is incredibly invaluable -though I'm sure that others would say the same about sociology. I mean, they'd be wrong, but still... If health administration, policy, and the sociology of health are legitimately interesting for you, go health sci; if proper science is more up your alley, go biomed (or even biochem, biopharm, etc.)