Malpractice Insurance For Electives

[SEAL]

Hello,

 

I am an international medical student. I applied for an elective at a certain university and it was confirmed.

 

At the time of application, malpractice insurance wasn't required as hospitals would cover visiting elective students.

 

6 months after my elective was confirmed and 1 month before the elective start date, I was just informed yesterday that the requirements has changed and that I need to purchase malpractice insurance on my own expense.

 

I just have some questions please:

 

1. Changing the requirements a long time after an elective has been confirmed seems unprofessional to me. I am not a Canadian so I just wanna know what you guys think: is that okay ? 

 

It is reasonable to say that the hospital should agree to cover students whose electives have already been confirmed. 

 

2. If there is a dispute between a student and the elective co-ordinator, who should be contacted to resolve this issue ? The AFMC student portal ?

 

3. Does anyone know any vendors to purchase malpractice insurance and how much does it cost for 2 months ?

 

Thank you.

[ralk]

Not too sure about obtaining malpractice insurance, but don't try to fight the school on this - you won't win. Yes, it's not right that they're changing the requirements on you after confirming your elective and with such little warning. That shouldn't happen. In medicine though, things like this happen all the time and there's not much that can be done about it at this stage. Do NOT try to start a conflict with the elective co-ordinator. There's not much way for you to win that fight, or anyone to moderate such a dispute (the AFMC portal is literally just an application manager, they have no power over the schools or any say in how they run their electives). Even if you were to somehow win, it could reflect very badly on you, especially if you're hoping to match to that school. Not pissing off the admin staff is the #1 unwritten rule to CaRMS - don't do it!

[JohnGrisham]

Welcome to medical school. The admin and faculty generally can do what they want. But students are held to a different standard. Make a peep, and you'll get labelled with professionalism issues..

 

Just comply and sort out the insurance.

[Snowmen]

You could fight it but that would signal the annihilation of the already small chance of you coming back to Canada as an IMG. I wouldn't recommend it.

[SEAL]

Thanks everyone for your comments.

 

Does anyone know if elective co-ordinators have supervisors over them ? Like what is the next level to talk to ?

 

I just want to explain to them that they should advocate on behalf of visiting elective students and tell the hospital to cover students whose electives have already been confirmed. That is not too much to ask.

[Harvestpro]

Thanks everyone for your comments.

 

Does anyone know if elective co-ordinators have supervisors over them ? Like what is the next level to talk to ?

 

I just want to explain to them that they should advocate on behalf of visiting elective students and tell the hospital to cover students whose electives have already been confirmed. That is not too much to ask.

Going over their head also doesn't look very good on you. Your best bet would just be to bite the bullet and keep your head down. Impress them in the elective and move on. 

[ralk]

Thanks everyone for your comments.

 

Does anyone know if elective co-ordinators have supervisors over them ? Like what is the next level to talk to ?

 

I just want to explain to them that they should advocate on behalf of visiting elective students and tell the hospital to cover students whose electives have already been confirmed. That is not too much to ask.

 

Elective co-ordinators do have supervisors. Those supervisors were almost certainly aware of the decision to now insist on malpractice insurance and may have been the ones to implement that policy. You will not do yourself any favours by speaking to them.

 

Schools have no obligation to provide electives to any students besides their own. As a CMG, I'm not guaranteed any electives anywhere but at my home school - the main incentive for Canadian schools to provide outside electives, besides checking out potential future residents, is so that their students in turn get elective opportunities at other Canadian schools. They have even less incentive to provide electives for IMGs. No hospital is going to cover malpractice insurance for an elective student when they are not required to. Clinical educational resources are stretched thin enough as it is and elective students eat up these resources - why would a hospital, already giving up clinical opportunities that could go to their students or residents, give up insurance money on top of that?

 

You're right, it's not fair that you were given this additional cost after being accepted to the elective. It's not fair that you were informed of this so close to your elective. You should be able to bring this up to someone and the school should be looking out for your best interests. However, that's not how medicine and medical education operates. It's not fair. It's not equitable. And in medicine, some people hold an obscene amount of power with minimal oversight and there's nothing you can do about it. This is one of those cases. If you really feel strongly about this, write your letter out to the school and send it after you have secured a residency position, wherever that may be. The electives system in Canada is pretty broken and despite the best efforts of many people, fixing it is a slow process. Your input isn't going to help those efforts appreciably but could hurt you significantly. Don't become a casualty of this broken system. Just play the game until you can put yourself in a position to more meaningfully push for positive changes.

[JohnGrisham]

Thanks everyone for your comments.

 

Does anyone know if elective co-ordinators have supervisors over them ? Like what is the next level to talk to ?

 

I just want to explain to them that they should advocate on behalf of visiting elective students and tell the hospital to cover students whose electives have already been confirmed. That is not too much to ask.

Trust me, just drop it. 

 

You aren't going to win any battles here, and it's just wasting your time. Accept it, and fall-in-line. You aren't in any position to try and change the system right now, especially because you aren't even apart of it yet.

 

EDIT: Ralk pretty much covered it all. It sucks, but that is how it is. Don't screw yourself over as a martyr. 

[SEAL]

I guess you are all right.

[LittleDaisy]

I am a CMG...and 4 days before my elective, the elective coordinator told me to redo my TST test (the test takes at least 2 days to do). Otherwise, my elective would have been cancelled.

I just listened and found a staff physician& RNP ASAP like a maniac,  and never complained.

The point is the elective coordinator and the faculty have a lot of power, don't argue with them!

I guess you are all right.

[NeuroD]

The sort of power structure that leads to comments like ralk's, LittleDaisy's, Commons' etc... is unfortunate.

 

I wish there were some hope for change with regards to the "fall-in-line, you're lucky to be here, I can easily replace you with 100 other eager people" attitude.

[LittleDaisy]

Exactly! Good point!

Even for CMGs, we are still very lucky to be able to complete clinical electives across Canada

Nothing is guaranteed in life, especially in medicine!

The sort of power structure that leads to comments like ralk's, LittleDaisy's, Commons' etc... is unfortunate.

 

I wish there were some hope for change with regards to the "fall-in-like, you're lucky to be here, I can easily replace you with 100 other eager people" attitude.

[ralk]

The sort of power structure that leads to comments like ralk's, LittleDaisy's, Commons' etc... is unfortunate.

 

I wish there were some hope for change with regards to the "fall-in-like, you're lucky to be here, I can easily replace you with 100 other eager people" attitude.

 

In fairness, managing electives isn't a simple task, so expecting it to run 100% smoothly isn't realistic. They're managing thousands of applications from all across Canada and the rest of the world, handling students from schools all on completely different schedules. There are dozens of departments and hundreds of preceptors, often across multiple cities, all with their own policies and preferences. I really don't envy their task and inevitably, some things will get lost in the shuffle.

 

That said, despite many efforts to make improvements, the current system is terrible. Some schools are easier to deal with than others, but the general level of disorganization is truly unacceptable, especially when electives are so vital in the CaRMS selection process. It has apparently improved from previous years with the introduction of the portal, but there are still so many issues with it. Worse, to keep unnecessary communications down, many schools have implemented policies that make self-advocacy difficult. Given the sheer volume of applications, this does make some sense, but it does mean that if an individual or group of individuals in the electives process holds things up, there's very little recourse. Even Canadian schools themselves have little influence here over the electives offices in other schools - we just have to play ball with whatever the school we want to do an elective at says, and hope it eventually turns out in our favour. 

[Caliver]

See if your school has one. I don't know too much about international schools, but certain Caribbean/Irish schools always have Canadian students who do electives in Canada, U.S., etc. So maybe it's worthwhile to check if your school has one.

[LittleDaisy]

I think that the OP's school doesn't offer it. To be fair, a lot of CMG who went unmatched, and who applied for rotations during their off year get refused as well. The malpractice insurance has become a norm to be accepted for any clinical elective! I think that OP, probably you should start looking into malpractice insurance, and even ask your elective school to provide you a list.

See if your school has one. I don't know too much about international schools, but certain Caribbean/Irish schools always have Canadian students who do electives in Canada, U.S., etc. So maybe it's worthwhile to check if your school has one.