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I'm not blaming you for anything and I'm grateful that you're disseminating information. No one should blame someone for doing what's best for themselves. In fact, if I were in your shoes, I wouldn't even bother with four years of residency if I were able to get FRCPC status right now. But if you want to go though with it on order to sub-specialize, the more power to you. I'm just surprised that the royal college would approve this. They live off of making people from other countries jump through hoops, even ones trained in ACGME programs in the US. In fact, the whole point of the royal c

Congrats on matching! But I'm surprised about some of the stuff you're saying. So the Royal College was willing to certify you as a FRCPC IM even though you hadn't done your registrar training? Isn't registrar training what is considered to be the equivalent of specialty training in Canada and the US. If I'm not mistaken, four years of post medical school training is not enough for independent practice in the UK, but the Royal College was willing to grant FRCPC status despite this? I was told that UK training is longer because the first two foundation years are generally very br

I wonder what impact the standardization of electives will have on Quebecers not leaving Quebec. They will now be able to take the same number of electives in a specialty as English Canadians. I think this will make it easier for them to match to English Canada than before. It's definitely going to be an interesting few year if there is inflation and interest rates rise with it. With the debt burden all levels of government are carrying, even a small increase in interest rates would make servicing this debt very expensive.

I wonder what the picture is going to look like in a few years with the extra seats that Quebec is adding. Will Quebec add enough residency spots for them or balk at the cost when COVID is in their rear view mirror? If they are to add extra residency spots it, will they announce it in advance or wait until the last minute and give applicants more match anxiety than they currently have? Will those extra spots all be in FM? The Canadian system of P/F grading and no USMLE style exam was not designed for such tight matches. The ratio of spots to applicants has dropped and the current system c

How can you do well when there are a set number of spots? Do you mean they were successful in matching to specialties in English Canada in addition to filling their own spots?

I keep hearing from every economist that it's the only option the Fed had. Otherwise we'd be in a great depression if they hadn't been so aggressive with their monetary policy. While I'm not necessarily disputing the need for aggressive monetary policy in 2008-11, I don't understand why they were so passive about raising interest rates when the economy was well on its way to recovery after 2012. The BOC and the Fed were keeping their rates under 2 even when it was clear as day that we were living through an asset bubble during the late 2010's. I remember reading an interview with Raghuram

This is somewhat unrelated but I can't believe the eye injection gravy train is still rolling in Canada. That money could be used to perform so many more services that are rationed due to the lack of money in the system. Ophtho used to be the best paid specialty in the US as well, but the Centre for Medicare and Medicaid Services(CMS) cut their compensation every single year the fees were negotiated. Now Ophtho is merely mid-pack for procedural specialties. Retina is still the best paid Ophtho sub but again, nowhere near what it used to be before the CMS cuts. Goes to show how even t

I was under the impression that most closures are done by Plastic Surgeons. This is particularity true if it's a complicated closure. I'm neither a dermatologist nor a plastics surgeon so I could be wrong.

I don't know how many classes you took during your early years but you might want to look at doing a masters at USask or UManitoba or just getting a job there to get IP status and to take advantage of their GPA calculation formulas and their big MCAT emphasis. It's a long 3-year process but if you're dedicated and the numbers work in your favour, it might be an option for you. Since Queens and Western don't have any IP preference, moving to the prairies wouldn't hurt you for those two. USask will only look at the most recent 120 credits when calculating the GPA for IP applicants. Since yo

This is a digression from OP's post but: The funniest thing is that some US schools construct their entire curriculum around excelling on Step1. U-Texas-Galveston, and the University of Missouri are examples of such schools. The University of Missouri was one of the first and most extreme example to do this and has the same average Step1 score as NYU, Duke, and Cornell (higher than Columbia,UChicago and Hopkins!). Interesting thing is that their match list, while very nice for mid-low tier US School, is not as good as you'd expect based purely off of their Step scores. I assume progr

This is true, it is very difficult to run a Moh's only practice, especially if you're a recent graduate. Most new Mohs surgeons start out doing quite a bit of general dermatology on the side. I think the Mohs job market in Canada is slightly better than the US one though. As for your last point, I'm in complete agreement. Without grades or a test like the USMLEs it's impossible to gauge the qualification of applicants. Eighty percent of applicants look identical on paper anyway. That's why many Derm/Ophtho/Rads programs ask for undergrad transcripts so that they have some form of data to

I didn't say that it's easy to match into. But if you match it is pretty chill. I can't think of any other specialty with the same $/hours worked ratio. I think they work less than 50 hours a week on average in Canada, data from the US had Derm at 44 hours a week. They don't have to worry about a saturated job market like surgical specialties or procedural IM sub-specialties either. There are plenty of jobs for Derm all over Canada, even in the GTA and Greater Vancouver. Also, unlike many other competitive specialties, gunning for Derm won't particularity harm your chances of matching to

That's decent but I feel like you're gunning abilities are sorely lacking. If I were in you're shoes, I'd enlist as a gunnery sergeant in the US Marine Corps to boost your extracurriculars. Not only will it help you for getting into medical school, you'll learn skills that will come in handy when you're trying to match at UofT. Gunnery skills are the most important criteria for matching at UofT. It will help you incapacitate your rivals in the brutal battles over limited positions that are in your future.

Derm->Mohs Surgery You'd work 40-45 hours a week 8:30-4 and make bank. Residency is also a really chill 8-5ish. Would leave you with plenty of time to think about how to invest the $$$ that you'd print hand over fist. You couldn't pay me enough to do it. Doing the exact same procedure every single day would be mind numbingly boring.

Lol, I said the same thing earlier in this thread. And I think a Thoracic fellowship after a Cardiac residency in Canada would only require two years if you used your enrichment year for the General Surgery during the Cardiac surgery residency. It could probably be done in less than 8 years since 6 months of senior Thoracic rotation during Cardiac residency would count towards Thoracic training. No need to do the Cardiac portion of a Thoracic fellowship either. In fact, one of the two surgeons I know who did this took 7 years to get board certified in both. It was before competency b