Jump to content
Premed 101 Forums

Observerships in first year ?


Recommended Posts

Are they recommended or necessary?

Seems like there is a lot of fuss around planning these among first year med students. I honestly cant see the use of doing them in first year since I dont know anything about anything medicine related. Should I think about "booking" some ? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, dooogs said:

Are they recommended or necessary?

Seems like there is a lot of fuss around planning these among first year med students. I honestly cant see the use of doing them in first year since I dont know anything about anything medicine related. Should I think about "booking" some ? 

I think it's useful for some to get early exposure to some competitive programs like plastics, ophtho, derm, ENT, neurosurg etc. to see if this is something they would like to pursue (or rule out) - since these specialties would require commitment and CV building way before the start of clerkship.

At least that's the plan for myself anyway.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 minutes ago, dooogs said:

Are they recommended or necessary?

Seems like there is a lot of fuss around planning these among first year med students. I honestly cant see the use of doing them in first year since I dont know anything about anything medicine related. Should I think about "booking" some ? 

Some programs aren’t actually even allowing them right now, because of COVID. Check with your school. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hoping to hear from some upper year students

 

I'm suspecting it's more of a "some med students are doing it so I should be doing it" than actually it being useful 

For example say I shadow an ENT doc in the OR and clinic. Not for 1% of the time will I know what is going on . How can I tell if it's something I'm interested ?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, dooogs said:

Hoping to hear from some upper year students

 

I'm suspecting it's more of a "some med students are doing it so I should be doing it" than actually it being useful 

For example say I shadow an ENT doc in the OR and clinic. Not for 1% of the time will I know what is going on . How can I tell if it's something I'm interested ?

It's obviously not a perfect system, but simply done becausr CaRMS is so competitive for certain specialties that they require super early commitments. This is very dissimilar to the US where people can still comfortably match to something like Ophtho without knowing they wanted it until they get to clerkship (with a 40% match rate for CaRMS, I'd say this would be super rare here). 

But if you're already sure on what you want, there's less of a need to "explore" early on, and you can just commit to it. You shouldn't feel any pressure though, everyone really goes at their own pace. You can simply start your ENT observerships in 2nd year, but I don't know how much more medical knowledge you'll have in 2nd year than 1st - they say med students are clueless up until clerkship anyway. It's just a way to get exposure. The same way that you volunteer in hospitals to know that medicine is for you, for example. Sure you may not know what's going medically, but you'll start to notice things like do you enjoy standing and operating for 5-6 hours straight? do you enjoy the atmosphere and the pressure of the OR? do you find operating in the cranial area interesting or not? do you enjoy the patient population when you're in the clinic? do you feel connected to the problems they're having? are they too sick or too healthy for your liking? - these are things you can pick up on about yourself that will tell you if it's a specialty you want to invest further in. And depending on the doc, you might even be allowed to assist in some verrrryyyyy basic ways once you've gained experience.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 minutes ago, dooogs said:

Yeah that's true. I am one of those people that has no idea what to do so :/

I'm kinda the same! I was so sure before that I wouldn't want to go into surgery at all. But lately I've been thinking about it a lot. Ophtho is really interesting to me but I'm kinda intimidated of the big portion of private practice involved. But I'd like a taste of those things before ruling any of them out. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We call them horizontals at Mac and all of them have been cancelled because of Covid. Admin is struggling to even place just my class (2021) in clerkship, so I doubt you'll be allowed to do them any time soon. When they do permit them again, the seconds years will have priority over first years.  Currently, the second years have had all their electives and horizontals cancelled because of capacity. They don't get to start until January 2021. Sorry to be a messenger of bad news, but on the bright side, you won't be missing out much. I barely did any horizontals myself and many of classmates haven't either. You can try to discover what kind of career you like by messaging upper years, residents and preceptors. You'll also get chance to explore during actual clerkship as well. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

34 minutes ago, bearded frog said:

I found it helpful but it won't help for carms or anything. If you have no idea, its helpful to get into the OR early on to see if that's a path you want to travel, as the surgery/medicine life is fairly different and if you can rule it out early it makes the next steps a lot easier.

I would probably try things in a process of elimination. Like for example rheumatology. No clue what they do on a daily basis. But what if it's actually really cool??!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

35 minutes ago, bearded frog said:

I found it helpful but it won't help for carms or anything. If you have no idea, its helpful to get into the OR early on to see if that's a path you want to travel, as the surgery/medicine life is fairly different and if you can rule it out early it makes the next steps a lot easier.

I have been in the OR before but in a very demanding specialty that I will never do. Would be cool to see others though.... probably wouldnt do it first year I think. I think I didn't get anything from it because I didnt even know what the instruments were or what the procedure is. It's just standing and looking at a screen idk

Link to comment
Share on other sites

54 minutes ago, premed72 said:

If observerships are an option this year, how do you secure one? Just email a doc, set something up and that's it? (P.s in Ottawa) 

I think someone posted about this in the Ottawa threads. there are a few admin people for certain departments that can introduce us to doctors, but most of the time it'll be just emailing them. Apparently there will be a presentation from faculty about this too.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, premed72 said:

If observerships are an option this year, how do you secure one? Just email a doc, set something up and that's it? (P.s in Ottawa) 

Pretty much just cold email. Given the current COVID situation though, it might be easier to do observerships in community clinics (rather than hospital based ones).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...