URGENT PLEASE ! Advice Regarding Leave Of Absence.

[DistressedMedStudent]

Hey everyone,

I am a medical student currently in the summer vacation between Med-2 and Med-3. I am supposed to start clerkship at the beginning of August. Unfortunately, I had to take a leave of absence at the end of second year in order to take care of an ill family member who subsequently passed away. Now my school is providing me with 2 options for my return to the program:

1. Do some remedial activities to make up for the time that I have missed and then start clerkship in Mid-November with my class (class of 2021). This would ultimately delay my graduation and I would have to join the the residency match with the class of 2022, meaning that there will be a gap between my graduation and start of residency (I am guessing about 7-9 months).

2. Take a long term leave of absence of about 6 months and repeat the portions that I have missed from Med-2 with the class of 2022 and then remain in-sync with them until graduation.

Which option do you guys think is better in terms of CaRMS and residency applications, is it better to take a gap now rather than having a gap between my graduation and start of residency? Which option would be looked on more favorably by program directors?

Another question, if I go with the first option, would I be eligible to apply for the first iteration of the CaRMS match as a prior year graduate? Or are prior year graduates only allowed to apply for the second iteration of the CaRMS match?

I need to make a decision by next Monday so any advice would be highly appreciated.

[Lactic Folly]

First, sorry for your loss. So, you missed about six months? What kind of "remedial activities" would make up for that? With the first option, would you actually convocate/graduate early, or simply have free time until the end of the year? With the second option, could you fill your gap with research/electives? Do you have a sense of what you would like to do at this point?

[Pepperyelk]

That's a tough decision. I wasnt sure which Monday so sorry if this is late. I personally would pick option 2 but it really depends on where you are at right now.

Option 1 - Depending on what you think, it might be nice to start working right away and pick up where you left off. You also get to stay with your class. However, I'm not sure what to think about the time off between graduating and residency - You would start working on your Carms App around August and would submit in November and then would have tons of free time before Carms. This might be beneficial if you could take extra electives during this gap but I'm not sure if your medical school allows that, so it would be important to find out. If you arent able to do electives in this time I think this would be a very unproductive time period.

Option 2 - This is actually the only option I saw people in my class do (They also matched to competitive specialties). This is a nice option because you get some time off if you need it, you will have a break at a very important time to start strategizing career options, and if you're up to it could do some research/make connections in your specialty of interest. 

Option 3 - If you are feeling ready to go back, is there any option they can let you catch up this summer before clerkship starts or was there too much time taken off?

As for your other question, the first round is open to those who have not ever matched in Carms so yes you would be eligible for the first round even though you already graduated.