magneto

No. MCC part 1 score does not significantly play a role in the +1 EM selection process. The three most important things are: (1) Letters of reference (2) elective performance (3) interview.

Both a written exam and oral exam.

It is a lot of work because you need to work in emergency department and sometimes it may not be easy if you live in a large city and cannot move. In addition, you need to keep up with the reading and procedural skills outside of practice because often you are working in emergency departments with no back up. It takes a while to accumulate the hours and some people may just lose interest over time.

Thank you to all the forum members who have contributed to this thread and answered questions and advocated for family medicine. I am looking for your help going forward. I did not log in for several weeks and couldn't answer the questions right away as I was busy finishing my residency and then finding a job. I am hopeful that I will be able to check more often from now on.

If asked about subspecialty interest during the interview, you can say palliative care. But overall your message should be that you want to become a family doctor first. And you will explore special interests once you are in the residency.

Nothing wrong with an FM applicant wanting to be a hospitalist. But I would advice to not make that the highlight of the interview. They are interviewing applicants for family medicine program (and not hospitalist program). The goal of family medicine program is to pick up applicants to train to become family medicine doctors. If you want to be a hospitalist, once you get into family medicine program then you can start advertising. Hope that helps.

It is not only incremental decreases in HbA1c. It is about looking out of your patient. A 50 year old male can come to your clinic because he has blood in his stool. You can refer him for colonoscopy and potentially pick up an early cancer. Many people don't feel comfortable sharing their embarrassing problems to new people such as a physician at walk-in-clinic or emergency doctor unless they are anxious or super unwell. However, they trust their family doctor because they believe that their family doctor is their quarterback. Let's take another example. A patient has a small mo

I think it is all about having a positive attitude. You can use a similar reasoning for any specialty in medicine and make it look boring. Family medicine is about building a relationship with your patients. They come to you for help. They are looking up to you for guidance. I think that is very rewarding experience. Let's take diabetes for an example. If you pick up a new diagnosis of diabetes through screening, you have the potential to significantly change a patient's life. Let's say no one picked up that this patient had diabetes. It is possible that he/she could presen

I am not a good role model for studying schedule. I attended academic days and tried to stay awake. I read around my patients and looked up things right away when I did not know something. I asked my preceptors lots of questions. I showed up for SOO practice offered by my program. About 3 months before the exam, I spent money on two books and tried to read them. I was able to finish Guide to the Canadian Family Medicine Examination (second edition) but quickly realized it had a lot of errors and overall it was not that comprehensive. I also picked up family medicine notes by O'

It is easy to become 9-5 office family physician and quickly loose your knowledge and skill set. Family medicine physicians are generalist and they should continue to incorporate multiple interests in their practice and not stick solely to 100% bread and butter family medicine office practice. Developing other interests is often hard and sometimes not that financially rewarding. But in my opinion, it helps keep your enthusiasm for medicine and empathy for patients.

Thanks for excellent input.

Yes but only a few schools accept applications from practicing physicians. Look at the CaRMS website as majority of programs only accept applications from FM PGY2s. There is also a possibility of obtaining CCFP-EM certification by working in ED without CCFP-EM and accumulating a certain amount of ED hours and then challenging the exam. It requires a lot of work and dedication. And the pass rate is lower than physicians who did a dedicated PGY3 EM program.

Agreed.

Good advice.

I think IM will bill more. They will have different billing codes, which will pay higher. Also their salaries will be higher if the hospital is not FFS. This is all a guess because I am not familiar with IM billings.

I think GIM doctors will bill more (due to billing codes) or have a higher salary. This is a guess.

Rural is usually defined by the province that you are working in. But I would say 20,000 population would be considered rural.

Both programs are very competitive. Most medical students who want to do EM will apply to the 5 year program first. CCFP-EM is very competitive so if anyone who does not want to do family medicine should not apply to FM.

3 year program: - Finish CCFP (family medicine training - 2 years) - Apply for PGY-3 CCFP-EM (emergency medicine training - 1 years) Total number of years = 3 Dalhousie (I believe) has a dedicated CCFP-EM program that is 3 years long and is direct entry from medical school so you only have to apply to CaRMS once but spots are very limited.

It is disheartening to see that current group of physicians, residents, medical students and pre-meds have started creating a divide in medicine. Sometimes I feel that new incoming medical students have lost sight of becoming a doctor first but instead are focused on specialty-of-choice from day 1. This has led to us vs them situation. And that is not helpful for anyone. I think instead of arguing which program is better or worst, we should talk about how to work together to provide great care to our patients and service to our society. This debate does not only apply only to CCFP (E

FRCPC (EM) program Advantages: - Cannot apply to Royal College accredited fellowships (e.g., critical care, pediatrics emergency medicine) - Credentials recognized internationally - Only need to apply to CaRMS once - Extra 2 years of training helps with networking, job prospects, finishing research projects etc. Disadvantages: - Longer residency (5 years at least) Potential disadvantages: - Can potentially only practice as emergency medicine physician (or within the sub-specialty niche)

CCFP (EM) program Advantages: - Shorter residency (3 years) - Can work as family physician and emergency physician - Can diversify practice if you want (OB etc.) Disadvantages: - Not recognized by some international countries (e.g., USA) - Cannot apply to Royal College accredited fellowships (e.g., critical care, pediatrics emergency medicine) - Need to apply to CaRMS twice Potential disadvantages: - Hiring prospect. In theory, when both CCFP-EM and FRCPC-EM graduate apply to only one spot at their home program, there is a greater likelihood th

Here are some common myths regarding CCFP-EM and FRCPC-EM: - CCFP-EM is inferior training. This is false. Graduates of both programs have the same scope of practice. There is no limitation to scope of practice of CCFP-EM residents. - CCFP-EM graduates only work in rural areas and the purpose of CCFP-EM is to train emergency physicians for rural areas. This is false. Majority of CCFP-EM graduates in large urban areas and work along FRCPC-EMs. There are also many FRCPC-EMs who have decided to work in smaller towns due to their preference. - CCFP-EM graduates are not eligible to do

Before emergency medicine developed as a specialty, emergency departments were run by general practitioners and interns/residents of specialists (e.g., internal medicine, pediatrics, trauma etc.). Slowly emergency medicine started emerging as its own specialty and countries across the Globe started developing training pathways to train future emergency physicians. In Canada, there was a long discussion and debate between the College of Family Physician and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. In College of Family Physician view, emergency medicine was a sub-sp

I wanted to make a post to explain the two training pathways to emergency medicine in Canada (5 year FRCPC and 2+1 CCFP-EM program). There is a lot of great information on the two programs on this forum but there is also not-so-great information and sometimes plain wrong information based on opinions and anectodes. I believe this false information is not helpful for anyone. If you want to read more about history of emergency medicine in Canada, and history of how CCFP-EM and FRCPC (EM) program started, please search the following on your favourite search engine: 1. The birt