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2019 CaRMS unfilled spots


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On 3/4/2019 at 6:18 PM, shematoma said:

So yes these spots were "created" for IMGs, but essentially they came at the expense of expanding CMG positions to keep up with increased medical school enrollment. The government has limited money after all, and the claim is that hospitals in this country have limited training capacity. So what goes to IMGs comes at the expense of spots for CMGs.

This is incorrect. These spots were funded specifically to address the need in rural underserviced areas. The government had no interest in adding extra funding for more residency positions when the ratio was adequate enough to train all CMGs. So if there were no IMG positions, there wouldn't suddenly be new spots created for CMGs 'just because'. The only argument that could be made is that CMGs are losing out on the opportunity to apply to positions that come with a return of service contract, and almost nobody would be interested in applying for those spots.

Edited by leviathan
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4 hours ago, leviathan said:

This is incorrect. These spots were funded specifically to address the need in rural underserviced areas. The government had no interest in adding extra funding for more residency positions when the ratio was adequate enough to train all CMGs. So if there were no IMG positions, there wouldn't suddenly be new spots created for CMGs 'just because'. The only argument that could be made is that CMGs are losing out on the opportunity to apply to positions that come with a return of service contract, and almost nobody would be interested in applying for those spots.

I would agree - although I can see people arguing about the "almost nobody" part. What if there happened to be someone who was willing? 

If we want every single IMG spot to be used by a CMG only then we would have to accept that some of those spots are created with specific social needs in mind - including rural requirements. Those spots need to be filled - people are literally dying due to lack of access to care and the government has a responsibility to solve that problem, and they are going to argue that need trumps med students getting to go exactly where they want. I have to wonder how willing collectively we would be to accepting the sort of limitations those spots have. 

I still think the real reason the residency spots are held in such short supply is it is the only means the government has to control the situation and force people to go into fields they think people need to go into. They have tried everything else to little effect. My take on the recent match results suggests to me that their current approach is working at least from their point of view.  Fear is a powerful motivator, but a cruel one. 

 

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8 hours ago, shematoma said:

This is probably true of people in most if not all specialties... how does it explain the neuro spots in particular?

It may not - there is often random noise in the process as well. There are always weird things popping up in each year, and no particular explanation for it. I am rather guilty of trying to find patterns in it where sometimes there isn't a pattern at all really ha. 

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4 minutes ago, sWOMEN said:

I got second hand anxiety from reading the SOAP thread - what a fucking shitshow

Same. Absolute chaos. 

I also looked into how other countries do it. Apparently in Mexico, you have better odds of matching as an IMG to the US than you do in your own country! Europe is a bit different but without residency to become a registrar (specialist), you end up with a very low income as a GP. And so many countries seem to send their GPs to very rural areas on top of that.

i think moral of the story is that Carms isn't so bad at all. When you have >95% odds, it's not a bad system. 

As a side note, seems like 15,000 or so unmatched in USA? Insane number of IMGs making up that pool. And when you dont match there once, you're almost screwed the next time and virtually blacklisted after that. 

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3 hours ago, medigeek said:

Anyone who thinks Carms is rough should look at the mess that the US system is for those who didn't match:

 

 

This is NOT so bad at all! Many of the people SOAPed or later matched into competitive specialities (interventional radiology, radiology, EM, gen surg, anaesthesia, OB/GYN). Plus we do not know the circumstances of these students (might be IMGs/Carribean students, aiming for ortho, poor board scores, DO student???). Literally only one person got SOAPed to FM. In Canada, if a school got the SOAP match result shown on **DELETED**, it would be incredible! 

 

2 hours ago, medigeek said:

Same. Absolute chaos. 

I also looked into how other countries do it. Apparently in Mexico, you have better odds of matching as an IMG to the US than you do in your own country! Europe is a bit different but without residency to become a registrar (specialist), you end up with a very low income as a GP. And so many countries seem to send their GPs to very rural areas on top of that.

i think moral of the story is that Carms isn't so bad at all. When you have >95% odds, it's not a bad system. 

As a side note, seems like 15,000 or so unmatched in USA? Insane number of IMGs making up that pool. And when you dont match there once, you're almost screwed the next time and virtually blacklisted after that. 

In Mexico, it does not take 8 years of education just to land a residency,  and let's be honest, they do not have the best healthcare system, we should not compare ourselves to them. Consider the fact that we have similar med education system as the US and the fact that it is so competitive to get into med school, QUALIFIED students should expect to at least match! 

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1 minute ago, sWOMEN said:

What contributes to that other than stigma? Is CaRMS very different? There is a massive stigma vs unmatched people which is why many apply to specialties in 2nd iteration that are very diff from their original one if they did not back up or did not match into their back up. I plan on doing the same (backing up something competitive with FM and applying FM in 2nd iteration if I dont match at all instead of doing CaRMS again to get my competitive specialty)

Using the IMG example, there are indeed successful IMGs in Carms on 4th-6th attempts - largely foreign grads. In USA, that's extremely rare to impossible. Now I believe Carms allows you to repeat exams (IMGs) to improve scores whereas you cannot repeat USMLEs in USA if you pass, ever. 

Clearly it is evident Carms allows repeat attempts whereas USA virtually shuns you if you fail on attempt #2. 

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2 minutes ago, sWOMEN said:

They have spots left over in undesirable programs in desirable specialties whereas we have spots leftover in undesirable programs in undesirable specialties RIP

Undesirable there can mean you're worked 100+ hours/week, threatened nonstop, 1 of 5 who is for sure fired by end of PGY1, get verbally abused every minute of the day and your training is abysmal. Those are the programs you're referring to? Cause nothing else is unfilled there in anything remotely desirable. Even marginally half decent FM programs in mediocre locations fill up as of last year. 

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9 minutes ago, medigeek said:

Undesirable there can mean you're worked 100+ hours/week, threatened nonstop, 1 of 5 who is for sure fired by end of PGY1, get verbally abused every minute of the day and your training is abysmal. Those are the programs you're referring to? Cause nothing else is unfilled there in anything remotely desirable. Even marginally half decent FM programs in mediocre locations fill up as of last year. 

Right because in Canada, no residents work 100+ hour a week, get verbally abused or get subpar training... Let’s not just assume that the programs that the US students SOAPed or later matched are that malignant. Undesirable for unmatched Canadian student can mean tons of debt, no residency at all or be stuck in the middle of nowhere doing FM residency with ROS (and I can guarantee you that the variety of cases in those places are not as good as an urban centre). Even if US shuns you if you got a poor USMLE score, it is still much more IMG friendly. Just ask any IMG

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13 minutes ago, peace2014 said:

Right because in Canada, no residents work 100+ hour a week, get verbally abused or get subpar training... Let’s not just assume that the programs that the US students SOAPed or later matched are that malignant. Undesirable for unmatched Canadian student can mean tons of debt, no residency at all or be stuck in the middle of nowhere doing FM residency with ROS (and I can guarantee you that the variety of cases in those places are not as good as an urban centre). Even if US shuns you if you got a poor USMLE score, it is still much more IMG friendly. Just ask any IMG

I don't think you have any understanding of how malignant a select few US programs are. Never heard of anything that even comes close to it in Canada. And slap on the high risk of being fired as a resident. 

FM + ROS is still fine. You do 2 years of residency, and do your return of service 20 mins outside of Toronto, big deal. And you need high scores as an IMG and only get 1 realistic attempt. 

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Those of you matching in round two, just a heads up that at many schools round 2 applicants are not eligible for transfer in their first year and have to apply for transfer in their second year so make sure you are happy with a career in family if you end up ranking that since you will likely not be eligible to transfer out of it and will have to complete minimum 2 years of any 5 year specialty you match for potentially the full residency as the transfer rates are low. Rank wisely.  Good luck all.

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3 hours ago, polarbear89 said:

Those of you matching in round two, just a heads up that at many schools round 2 applicants are not eligible for transfer in their first year and have to apply for transfer in their second year so make sure you are happy with a career in family if you end up ranking that since you will likely not be eligible to transfer out of it and will have to complete minimum 2 years of any 5 year specialty you match for potentially the full residency as the transfer rates are low. Rank wisely.  Good luck all.

How do you figure out whether a school has this policy or not? 

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24 minutes ago, luggage said:

How do you figure out whether a school has this policy or not? 

You will have to check the individual policy at each school. Some probably have this documentation online and others you may have to contact their pgme office? (This would be confidential from the program directors, I believe). 

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10 minutes ago, polarbear89 said:

You will have to check the individual policy at each school. Some probably have this documentation online and others you may have to contact their pgme office? (This would be confidential from the program directors, I believe). 

Be aware that some of the new CBD requirements might make transferring a lot more difficult between programs

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3 hours ago, 2019CaRMS said:

The rotating internship year most places have will have different EPAs rather than 4 weeks obs=4 weeks obs

This, and for many programs there really won't be much of a "rotating internship". There has been a move towards making PGY1 less off-service based and off-service rotations are usually somewhat related to your speciality. (i.e. psych doing less CTU, more addictions in PGY1). 

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On 3/2/2019 at 1:57 PM, Radiopaque said:

What specialty did you match into? Im interested in switching out of family. There’s a couple postings on www.residentransfer.com too but not sure about BC. Even if we cant transfer right away, transferring in dec seems better late than never 

Interesting site.

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