pretomd

A word to applicants in general - be wary of those who paint an overly optimistic or overly pessimistic view of a certain school. The reality is never that black or white. Be especially wary of what you hear on a public forum, where people can hide behind a keyboard and write whatever they want without having to stand behind their words. Question their intentions and whether they have your best interests in heart. Whatever you hear, corroborate it by asking real people you know. If you don't know anyone personally, all the schools have Facebook groups. Make posts or message upper years. Regard

This is also misleading. Most post-MF4 electives are secured by students submitting applications to placement contacts. The ranked lottery is a work in progress that not all specialties and all locations have signed on for yet, which is why few people receive their electives through the lottery.

Just want to point out that a ranked lottery is how clerkship streams are determined for most medical schools and to omit that and take advantage of the buzz around the word "lottery" is misleading.

But you are not a medical professional yet. Check back in with us in four years' time and let us know what you think.

Horizontal electives are great for career exploration. When you do them, make sure you come prepared with questions for the physicians. Ask them everything you'd want to know about the specialty, not just the clinical component. Ask them how many of them pursue a subspecialty, what an average day looks like, how they see the scope of practice for the profession changing for the future, how they think the job market will look like in 10 years, whether they like their job, whether they would do it again. You'd be surprised by their honesty. Here are two resources that I really liked

Three year curriculum is faster, you are encouraged to make a decision about specialties sooner, and there is less time for breaks. The benefit is you save a year and a significant amount of money. You can do a fourth year. McMaster calls it an Enrichment Year. You can use it to pursue a masters/additional research. You can also use 40% of that enrichment year to do clinical electives (~20 weeks). That's a significant number of electives on top of electives you'd usually get. Not a lot of people do it, but an enrichment year is a great option that you can flexibly use to make your

Usually by October, but keep in mind this might not be true because of COVID-19 this year. Horizontal/observership opportunities are going to be limited in the first few months of school at any med school, depending on how this situation plays out.

Congrats! Mac's a great choice. I was deciding between Mac and a four year program two years ago. Feel free to message me with any questions. Anyone reconsidering Mac specifically because of this situation is silly and needs perspective.

I absolutely agree. If I were in your shoes, I would be very devastated. As an applicant, having interviews be replaced by Mac's system does feel as if you have had your agency taken away from you (regardless of the chance-based processes that an interview presents). Things are out of your control, and you can't say you gave it your all because you weren't given that chance. Objectively, Mac's method does make sense on a macro level, even if it might not feel fair on an individual level. And any of the 550 of you would be fine choices. That's all I was trying to say. It does suck t

An interview is not an accurate screener for "great physicians", nor one for "bad physicians". Regardless of what measures you're using to define a great physician. You may not want to accept this, but the reality is that most of the 550 would make fine physicians. Will there be some people who slip through who should not be physicians? Yes. This is true with Mac's 2020 selection strategy, and is also true with any other current selection strategy. You are also not inherently born with traits that destine you for medicine. A lot of what goes into being a good physician, you will learn wh

As a current mac student, I also don't think this is ideal. But this is also anything but an ideal situation. If anything, I believe Mac may have excluded virtual interviews too quickly. But the decision has been made, and we can hardly change it at this point. I was more addressing the arguments and complaints of merit, not defending McMaster's decision.

I understand you're upset. If I were in your shoes, I would be upset too. And this might be really hard to hear - but an interview was always just a dressed up lottery. I've read a lot of outrage about the absence of "merit" in this thread, but the reality is, there's little merit to an interview. An interview does not select for success in medicine (whether MMI or otherwise). An interview selects for the ability to interview well. That's it. The process was extremely luck-based before. That hasn't changed. What's changed is that you (and many of your colleagues) believe your agency has

This is untrue. The person was always removed from the class pending resolution of the case. They never started with the class of 2022. The class size is 205, rather than the usual 206.

McMaster followed within days of the other schools, and with one potential day of clinical exposure today (which is limited since many McMaster clerks were on elective, which were cancelled anyway). Also, this isn't about student safety as much as it is about public safety. Students mainly fall into the 20-30 year age range, and fatality for them is extremely low. You would be better off making an argument in favour of public safety. https://www.vox.com/2020/3/12/21173783/coronavirus-death-age-covid-19-elderly-seniors

I'm not entirely clear on what your personal stake here is, but I think your disappointment is misdirected. As a student studying at McMaster, I have found the MD program's communication and commitment to student learning, student safety, and public safety to be reasonable, all things considering. Have I had frustrations with the way the situation has unfolded? Very much so. But I can recognize that this has been largely out of the control of the respective medical schools across the country. If there are schools that are trying their best to keep students in clinical placements with reasonabl