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[FuturePlasticSurgeon]

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[ArchEnemy]

7 minutes ago, PlasticSurgery said:

If I understand, there are many specialties within internal medicine like cardiology but the match is for internal medicine only? How do you know the school you get matched to has the specialty program you want?

What's the difference between the cardiac surgery and vascular surgery program? Which one trains cardiovascular surgeons?

Internal Medicine requires 2 separate matches. The first match (CaRMS) occurs in the 4th year of medical school, and the second match (MSM) in 3rd year of residency. To find out more information on the programs offered by each school, click here.

Cardiac surgeons performing surgeries on the heart, whereas vascular surgeons perform surgeries on blood vessels (abdominal aneurysm, atherosclerosis of lower extremity arteries). In Canada, you are usually either a Cardiac surgeon or a Vascular surgeon, not both. 

Edited June 27, 2019 by ArchEnemy

[UdeMed]

To add on what ArchEnemy said, Cardiac surgeons are often referred to as cardiovascular surgeons as they operate on the heart's vessels and/or thoracic vessels. Some staff you may meet in rotations have been trained to do the three of them (referred as CVT surgery), but they now focus more on one specific discipline (except in rural locations).

The admission process with CaRMS has now 3 distinct pathways : you can enter Cardiac surgery, Vascular Surgery or General surgery (then do a fellow in thoracic or vascular surgery). These 3 disciplines used to be fellowships of General Surgery, but Cardiac started a different training as did Vascular a few years ago.