Emergency medicine research and CaRMS

[mew]

I've been interested in emerg for a while and was working with an attending to submit a REB for a research project that I was really excited about, which was supposed to get going earlier this year, but COVID has derailed those plans indefinitely. I'm supposed to start clerkship in the fall which won't leave any time for research. Are there any activities I could/should be doing in the meantime to help make myself a better emerg applicant?

[gangliocytoma]

The CAEP student rep held a zoom call with a bunch of EM program directors across Canada last night and many of them were adamant that research in EM is not necessary to be accepted into an FRCP EM program. I'm not sure if you have done any other research in the past but they said any sort of scholarly work (doesn't have to be EM) will be taken into account as residents are expected to do a research. The main thing they said was to be keen, teachable, and independent (ie. check in on your patients, follow-up on lab results, take initiative) in your EM rotation (and all other rotations since EM is a generalist specialty). Having a solid general approach to standard ED presentations would probably be a good start.

[mew]

So we do need research but not necessarily emergency medicine research? Not that it makes a difference for me as I haven't done any research in med school yet.

EDIT: I do have lots of other extracurricular activities both in and out of medical school, just no formal "scholarly" activity.

[gangliocytoma]

22 minutes ago, mew said:

So we do need research but not necessarily emergency medicine research? Not that it makes a difference for me as I haven't done any research in med school yet.

EDIT: I do have lots of other extracurricular activities both in and out of medical school, just no formal "scholarly" activity.

They said they look at research as part of "other things" outside your clinical performance. Other can include research, leadership things, etc.

If you join the CAEP medical student facebook group the student rep has recorded the zoom call and you can listen to it yourself.