Aetherus

There is no doctor shortage, there is only a misuse of funds and a poor distribution of resources. There is no point in increasing Medical School positions as there is already a shortage of residency positions and a shortage of jobs in certain areas. Furthermore, we don’t need more doctors in major centres, we need them in the remote communities and it is hard to get people to stay long term to provide care. There are many things the government is mishandling in this pandemic, but medical school positions is not one of them.

It takes years to train physicians. It takes 4 years of training (ie medical school) before you are of any use to the system. No premed would be able to meaningfully impact patient care from a medical aspect in time for this pandemic. Furthermore, the main problem with man power is a funding issue from the governmental level and not a shortage of doctors.

Much of CARMS is about the narrative. You will need a good one to explain to the committee how you went unmatched for one of the most competitive specialities and in your year off pivoted to another uber competitive speciality. I think doing the 3 Derm electives will make it very hard to demonstrate your commitment to Ophthalmology and your previous record will make derm programs sceptical as well. Not to mention the illusion that you are chasing the most lucrative specialities in Medicine. I would strongly recommend applying to family medicine as a backup. As mentioned, you will be able to do

I think these are two separate issues. I’m not talking about residency equivalence which determines if your residency training is considered equivalent but talking about if your medical degree is recognized in the state you are working in. You are correct that there are certain discrepancy in residency training that restricts your ability to practice certain specialities with canadian training. I think you are confounding doing the USMLE to get a H1b visa instead of a J1 which in certain states requires the USMLE (Florida is one that comes to mind). However getting an H1b visa and having your

My understanding is that the LMCC having two parts to parallel the American Exam is required to have our training considered equivalent to the US training. I think having this equivalence is nice for portability, but is especially important in terms of optics during contract negotiations. Having an easy way out of Canada puts pressure on the government during negotiations and helps us get better contracts.

Stethoscopes are pretty much just a fashion accessory. I don’t think it’s ever worth upgrading your stethoscope unless you are a cardiologist or have a lot of disposable income.

The MSPR serves almost no role at all. Purely there to look for red flags. Every school has such a different MSPR that’s it’s useless to use to compare applicants. Electives, research and connections are way more important.

Genetics and Pediatric subspecialties come to mind as requiring a good grasp of embryology. Most surgical specialties will have a pediatric subspecialty that are generally heavy on embryology. Most congenital malformations can be traced back to embryology. That being said, embryology for the most part is not directly relevant to clinical practice.

GIM is also either 1 or 2 years depending if you go through the Carms GIM fellowship or just extend your internal residency by 1 year. I believe cardiac surgery is also 6 years.

Oshawa is affiliated to Queen’s and although it does not have a medical school, there is 5-10 medical students from Queen’s on rotation there at any given time. I doubt UofT would be allowed to open a campus there when everyone is already affiliated to queens. I think part of the family Medicine program is also based out of Oshawa.

The biggest difference between Mac and Ottawa is the fact that one program is 4 years and the other is 3 years. This is so much more important than the theoretical home school advantage.

Queen’s has the best set up for electives in my opinion. We have 6 weeks in 3rd year after you have completed 3 core rotations, and then you have another 8 weeks in September/Oct/Nov pre-carms and then you have 2 weeks in january. The 6 weeks in 3rd year are fantastic as it is easier to set up electives at that time as no other school has elective time that match with this. Furthermore, it allows you to test drive whatever specialty you are interested in so that you don’t realize in 4th year after doing a few electives that it is not a right fit and then you dont have time to fix your schedule

I had to make this decision 6 years ago and chose to attend Queen’s. I do not regret my decision one bit. In fact, Medical School at Queens was the best 4 years of my life.

Feel free to reach out if you find yourself having to make a decision in a few weeks from now.

A few more important factors should be weighed in your decision. Do you know what specialty or area of medicine you are interested in? If the answer is no, or you are interested in something highly competitive (plastics, derm, Ophtho), I would strongly suggest not going to a 3 year program. There is a real disadvantage of not having any summers off. Furthermore, the elective schedule is less idea at 3 year schools and it makes it harder to make a good impression. I can only speak to Queen’s as I graduated from there. I absolutely loved my time at Queen’s. In my biased opinion, it is the b