McGill and Calgary First Iteration?

[1MoreCoffee]

I noticed that both these schools had extremely high numbers of graduates who did not match in the first iteration (especially if you take the % from the total graduates of the school). Do these numbers reflect an issue with their medical school or is there some sort of alternate explanation? 

[LostLamb]

Word on the street is that Calgary had an exceptionally high proportion of students apply to competitive surgical specialties without backup. 

[xiphoid]

Being a three year school and doing your first elective before even doing your cores also doesn't help Calgary.

[mustardyellow]

Do these numbers tend to fluctuate year-to-year or do they reflect certain programs? 

[Aetherus]

1 hour ago, mustardyellow said:

Do these numbers tend to fluctuate year-to-year or do they reflect certain programs? 

There is a significant amount of fluctuation from year to year. However, there are certain schools that consistently have some of the best matches and others that consistenly have worse than average match rates. 

Generally speaking, I would say that larger schools have slightly worse match rates which I attribute to it being easier to fall through the cracks/have a poor match strategy. Smaller schools generally have a slightly higher match rate for probably the same reason. Quebec schools generally have a slightly worse match rate but they have a unique situation where most applicants onyl apply to the Quebec Schools.

To truly get a sense of if a school consistently does better, you would have to sift throught the data for the last ten years and plot a 10 year trend. Another consideration is that the competitiveness and match strategies of the class will significantly affect the match rate.

 

[Snowmen]

1 hour ago, Aetherus said:

Generally speaking, I would say that larger schools have slightly worse match rates which I attribute to it being easier to fall through the cracks/have a poor match strategy. Smaller schools generally have a slightly higher match rate for probably the same reason. Quebec schools generally have a slightly worse match rate but they have a unique situation where most applicants onyl apply to the Quebec Schools.

It's actually pretty much impossible to go unmatched in Quebec unless you don't apply to FM or have some professionalism issue. Most of the people who go unmatched in the first round actually do it "by choice" in the sense that they'd rather wait to see the spots left in second round instead of backing up with FM in first round since it's guaranteed that spots will be left.

[1MoreCoffee]

8 minutes ago, Snowmen said:

It's actually pretty much impossible to go unmatched in Quebec unless you don't apply to FM or have some professionalism issue. Most of the people who go unmatched in the first round actually do it "by choice" in the sense that they'd rather wait to see the spots left in second round instead of backing up with FM in first round since it's guaranteed that spots will be left.

Would you say that of those 26 who went unmatched, most are seeking English matches in other provinces like Ontario or BC? For programs other than FM I suppose?

[la marzocco]

23 minutes ago, Snowmen said:

It's actually pretty much impossible to go unmatched in Quebec unless you don't apply to FM or have some professionalism issue. Most of the people who go unmatched in the first round actually do it "by choice" in the sense that they'd rather wait to see the spots left in second round instead of backing up with FM in first round since it's guaranteed that spots will be left.

To be clear, McGill's match situation mirrors more of ROC than those of the 3 other Qc medical schools. McGill also has one of the lowest rate of students choosing FM as their first discipline of choice: "However, McGill has the smallest percentage of students choosing family medicine as a career of all 17 medical schools in Canada. Currently only 18% of McGill graduates choose family medicine as their first choice. We must increase enrollment in family medicine to levels similar to peer-institutions (e.g. University of Toronto, ~30%)." 

https://www.mcgill.ca/medicine/files/medicine/Toward_a_New_Curriculum-final.pdf

[Edict]

On 4/25/2019 at 7:19 PM, la marzocco said:

To be clear, McGill's match situation mirrors more of ROC than those of the 3 other Qc medical schools. McGill also has one of the lowest rate of students choosing FM as their first discipline of choice: "However, McGill has the smallest percentage of students choosing family medicine as a career of all 17 medical schools in Canada. Currently only 18% of McGill graduates choose family medicine as their first choice. We must increase enrollment in family medicine to levels similar to peer-institutions (e.g. University of Toronto, ~30%)." 

https://www.mcgill.ca/medicine/files/medicine/Toward_a_New_Curriculum-final.pdf

I think the issue for McGill's match rate is the higher specialty rate which is likely in part to do with the types of students McGill selects. With that being said, a first iteration lower match rate is not necessarily a major issue if the students ultimately were happy to do 2nd round family medicine at the same rate as other schools in english Canada applying to a 1st choice specialty and backing up with family medicine. 

 

[indefatigable]

On 4/25/2019 at 7:19 PM, la marzocco said:

To be clear, McGill's match situation mirrors more of ROC than those of the 3 other Qc medical schools. McGill also has one of the lowest rate of students choosing FM as their first discipline of choice: "However, McGill has the smallest percentage of students choosing family medicine as a career of all 17 medical schools in Canada. Currently only 18% of McGill graduates choose family medicine as their first choice. We must increase enrollment in family medicine to levels similar to peer-institutions (e.g. University of Toronto, ~30%)." 

https://www.mcgill.ca/medicine/files/medicine/Toward_a_New_Curriculum-final.pdf

Probably part of the issue is provincial regulations also - QC is the only province that I know of that strongly restricts where FPs can work - and Montreal is different linguistically and culturally from the rest of QC.  Plus FPs in QC have also earned less than many of their Canadian counterparts vs specialists.  Finally, McGill has also had more of a specialty vs general orientation in training with many more grads historically going to the US in comparison to other schools.  

[LB_2019]

On 4/25/2019 at 6:56 PM, Snowmen said:

It's actually pretty much impossible to go unmatched in Quebec unless you don't apply to FM or have some professionalism issue. Most of the people who go unmatched in the first round actually do it "by choice" in the sense that they'd rather wait to see the spots left in second round instead of backing up with FM in first round since it's guaranteed that spots will be left.

While this used to be the case, the past few years have seen a surge in family medicine applications in the Greater Montreal Area. This year especially, no FM spots were left anywhere near the big cities (Montreal, Sherbrooke and Quebec City) after the first round. Gatineau was the only "big" city that had FM spots in the 2nd iteration - everything else was rural FM. I cannot speak for Sherbrooke or Quebec City, but FM in Montreal has gotten competitive in the past years, and it's possible to no-match in fam med if you're applying only on-island, even for candidates with strong, clearly fam med candidatures.

[F508]

9 hours ago, LB_2019 said:

While this used to be the case, the past few years have seen a surge in family medicine applications in the Greater Montreal Area. This year especially, no FM spots were left anywhere near the big cities (Montreal, Sherbrooke and Quebec City) after the first round. Gatineau was the only "big" city that had FM spots in the 2nd iteration - everything else was rural FM. I cannot speak for Sherbrooke or Quebec City, but FM in Montreal has gotten competitive in the past years, and it's possible to no-match in fam med if you're applying only on-island, even for candidates with strong, clearly fam med candidatures.

Completely agree. This year was a tough match all around.. shockingly very little left over spots in all specialties in Quebec.

Family medicine filled almost entirely. Not only were there no more spots in the big/main cities of all four faculties.. even the peripheral sites like Eastern Townships and Trois-Rivières were completely filled up... Only very rural spots left in family medicine this year. In previous years, most faculties had a few spots left over in the big/main cities and the peripheral sites had many left over spots. To be seen if it's just this year or a new pattern..

[X Æ A-12]

On 4/25/2019 at 4:02 PM, xiphoid said:

Being a three year school and doing your first elective before even doing your cores also doesn't help Calgary.

Doesn't explain the discrepancy between Mac and Calgary

[ZBL]

38 minutes ago, swoman said:

Doesn't explain the discrepancy between Mac and Calgary

Doesn’t Mac typically have more FM applicants (and a much, much younger age demographic) compared to Calgary? I don’t know the stats from this year but seem to recall something to that effect from previous years. 

[photato]

6 hours ago, swoman said:

Doesn't explain the discrepancy between Mac and Calgary

I wonder if part of it is how notoriously random and difficult it is to get a Calgary FM interview and if U of C students backed up only with Calgary FM then got rejected for interview or weren't ranked. I would hope they at least somewhat protect their own students. With my class, many people that have been aiming for FM for all of med school that would have ranked Calgary highly didn't get interviews, but a ton of people with no FM electives that were clearly backing up got interviews. Then they had 11 seats open 2nd round 

[freewheeler]

Anecdotally there seemed to be quite a bit of regional bias this year, as speaking with people I think a lot of programs absorbed students from their own schools/provinces this year. As for another consideration, I think as far as 3 year schools go, Mac is much better positioned geographically with its proximity to so many other schools.

[photato]

 

 

 

1 hour ago, freewheeler said:

Anecdotally there seemed to be quite a bit of regional bias this year, as speaking with people I think a lot of programs absorbed students from their own schools/provinces this year. 

I go to school in the same province which is why so many people in my class would have ranked Calgary high if not #1 if they had gotten an interview. We've been told this happens every year though.

[X Æ A-12]

I always thought PGME and UGME at a school are very separate entities, there is no incentive to "protect" their own students from going unmatched. As a FM (or any other kind of) PD, you want the best residents for your program. If you're an Ophtho PD and the Ophtho gunners at your school are awesome and the same if not better than other interviewees, then you will likely rank them higher since you know them better, not just cause they're from the same school

[photato]

On 5/1/2019 at 7:20 PM, swoman said:

I always thought PGME and UGME at a school are very separate entities

They should be, but there’s a lot of overlap.