UC or UT?

[Guest medinvan]

Hi,

 

I was just accepted as an OOP student off the waitlist for UC. I was accepted on May 15th into UT. Before being accepted to UC, I was prepared to go to UT (from vancouver) but was feeling a bit overwhelmed by the impression i have of UT that it is ultracompetitive (and has frequent exams) and the fact that it is quite expensive (especially living cost and plane tickets to go back to vancouver every break) and it is quite far from Vancouver (much farther than calgary).

 

Now that UC has accepted me, I don't know if I should choose UC. My concerns about UC is that it is three years (very few and short breaks to visit family), and few elective spots (since I think I definitely want to specialize in radiology, radiation therapy, or nuclear medicine...and be in Vancouver for it....i would like to do electives in those fields in vancouver).

 

And finally, since I really want to be in this limited range of specialties, and I'm positive I want to do my residency in Vancouver, I was wondering if choosing UT or UC would make a difference in my ability to match to my residency of choice. I would assume that factors that will affect my ability to match to radiology, radiation therapy, or nuclear medicine in Vancouver include:

-the focus the med school places on these specialties

-the amount of clinical time i get in these specialties

-the amount of elective time i spend in vancouver (to know the vancouver-based doctors)

-my relative performance at that school (ie if UT is supercompetitive, then there will be much much more pressure on me to give up free/relax time to study and keep myself from being pushed to the bottom of the class in terms of academic performance)

-the reputation of the medical school??? (not sure if there is such a thing in residency matching...but in terms of the general public, UT seems more prestigious)

 

Any help/advice would be excellent and great,

 

Thanks!

[Guest Jerika81]

Hi medinvan,

Congrats on having to make such a tough decision.

 

Obviously there is no clear cut choice between the schools, or you wouldn't be asking for advice, but keep in mind you should never let people's personal opinions sway you too much. Obviously on this forum you are going to get a lot of people telling you that Calgary is an amazing school, which it is but people on the U of T forum would probably say the same thing about U of T.

 

It sort of sounds like you are trying to decide whether to do med school at a school where you might enjoy life as a med student a lot more, but where you are concerned you might be at a disadvantage in matching to a competitive school, vs. a school that may not provide you with as enjoyable of a med school experience, but may provide you with a better chance of matching to the city/spectialty that you want down the road.

 

All I can say is that in my personal opinion, you probably will have a better time at U of C than at U of T based on what you said in your post, but as to whether U of T will provide you with an advantage down the road for residency, that is a lot less likely. At most it would provide you with a small advantage because there is more elective time, but even that doesn't matter a whole lot. I can tell you that 5 people at U of C wanted Radiology this year, and one wanted Radiation oncology, and all but one of the radiology people got what they wanted. Also, one person matched to radiology in Vancouver, and another to rad onc in Vancouver- so clearly it's possible!

 

Good luck:)

[Guest Lurkergonepublic]

In making my UofC vs UofA decision, I heard again and again from people who's opinons I respect that the med school you attend is not nearly as important as what you put into your own education, and that is always up to you. Your own achomplishments and drive will make your school almost irrelevant. I don't know a lot about UofT, but from what I've learned of UofC, I wouldn't worry about time to prepare for a competative specialty. Because the program is more flexible and self-tailored, you can begin getting exposure (and making connections) in your chosen field very early on (like in the first month or two of school).

 

I've spoken to a few of UofC med students who are just beginning clerkship, and they unanimously tell me that despite being a 'year behind' other schools, most clerks from other schools do not have more than a few months more clerkship experience than they (The lack of four months vacation really makes up for that missing year in Calgary). Plus a friend in 4th year at UofA tells me that many people take significant portions of their 4th year clerkship time off if they do not need it for their specialty (not that everyone does, but that's just to say the 3 year program is not necessarily cutting out as much as it might seem).

 

Everyone I've spoken to from UofC tells me the 1 less year has rarely been a problem for anyone matching. And if it is, I understand you are able to defer graduation for a year (before entering the CARMS match) and take an extra year of clerkship as needed before matching (still in the first round). Although its hard to make too many inferences from the Carms site stats, I have pored over them, and decided that Calgary grads seem in no way disadvantaged compared to other schools when it comes to the match.

 

As I was also told, you can't go wrong with either choice, so good luck and congrats.

[Guest peachy]

was feeling a bit overwhelmed by the impression i have of UT that it is ultracompetitive

Nobody who actually goes to U of T says this. This is entirely a misconception that non-med-students and med-students at other schools have. I am sure there are tons of good reasons to pick Calgary over U of T; this is not one of them.

[Guest marbledust]

Nobody who actually goes to U of T says this. This is entirely a misconception that non-med-students and med-students at other schools have. I am sure there are tons of good reasons to pick Calgary over U of T; this is not one of them.

 

Peachy, just out of curiousty, where do you think this misconception comes from? I have never actually thought about it--why does U of T have this rep? Because of the sheer size and reputation of the entire university? But that doesn't really explain why many think of it as "ultracompetitive."

 

Just curious...maybe you don't have an answer for me lol

[Guest peachy]

Peachy, just out of curiousty, where do you think this misconception comes from?

I would guess either because this was once true, or because of the spilling over from the reputation of undergraduate programs at U of T. And once there's a reputation for anything, it's pretty hard to shake. Look at McMaster, for example: people still see it as the school where people with low grades have a good chance, despite it having the highest incoming GPA of any school in Ontario!

[Guest medinvan]

Thanks for all your comments.

 

three things I was wondering....

 

I was wondering if having summers (at UT) to do things such as short term research or going to international medical experiences (without using up elective time) helps in terms of residency matching?

(note: i just graduated from undergrad, so i don't have as much life experience and/or graduate level education as many of the older students at UC....which apparently has a relatively high average-entrance-age)

 

Also, is it nearly impossible to do a little research during the medical school year? (ie at Calgary...any research will be concurrent with school)

 

And finally, do you think that since Calgary has smaller class sizes than UT, UC students are better able to know their profs and clinical supervisors (and vice versa...ie, profs and supervisors have less students to deal with so they get to know and remember the students better)? And do you think this would in any way help in terms of getting better experiences in the clinical setting, as well as getting better reference letters which would help in terms of residency placement?

 

Thanks!!!!

[Guest Kirsteen]

Hi there,

 

Here at UofC we currently have a good bit of time built into our curriculum for "self-study". Most of the time, this can be used in any way you fancy and some do use this time for shadowing, or conducting research, or both, or neither. Also, after our first year, we have a total of 7 weeks off. For four of those weeks we are required to complete an elective and for the latter three, you can do whatever you wish. During that time, I completed a clinical elective for the first four weeks, then went internationally to complete a 3-week research elective in interventional radiology, the resulting paper for which was just recently published. In addition, a number of us have had multiple publications while in medical school, so I would say that there is ample time for productive research if that is what you're keen to do.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[Guest medinvan]

Thanks.

 

Wow, having something published in the relatively short time frame (eg in 3 weeks) sounds great! Is that considered a rarity or is it somewhat common in clinical/medical research?

 

I've worked on 2 undergrad summer research projects, as well as a thesis for a school year and the projects got nowhere near the stage of publication....(getting things published in a short time seemed impossible or required a great amount of luck).

 

Also, the students who are doing research in the study-time....are they all working on joing MD and PhD or MSc, or are some students just doing an MD and volunteer to do research with a professor?

 

Thanks for all your help!

[Guest Kirsteen]

Hi again,

 

First thing's first: three weeks of elective work alone did not result in a publication. During those three weeks I was compiling and analyzing the data. The writing and editing of the paper occurred thereafter during regular school time. We finally completed and submitted the paper in February and it was published in May.

 

In terms of turnaround times for clinical research it can vary depending on the type of study that is being conducted. Randomized controlled trials and prospective cohort studies can take a long time to complete (from initiation to publication) because the data accrual process often takes a significant amount of time. However, in the right analytical hands, a retrospective analysis of relatively clean data can be turned around quite quickly. Another study type that can be turned around quite efficiently (which also sits low on the totem pole of study quality) is a case study, a.k.a., case report. During my last elective I wrote up a first draft of an interesting and unique case within a week, which we're aiming to submit for publication within the month. The majority of the time spent on that study was making sure that the patient facts and imaging captions were correct.

 

Generally, and again, depending on the clinical study type, it seems that basic science often takes a lot more effort and time to achieve one publication relative to clinical science. Getting published, especially in clinical research, often requires a nose for what's sexy to the clinical audience, and what's available re: data. If you can successfully sniff out both those characteristics--and many seasoned supervisors can in a jiffy--then you are in good stead for publication. Mind you, a good dose of passion for the subject is always handy as it's that which helps you to work on any given piece of research when there's little other motivation to do so, i.e., thesis deadlines, etc., and important medical school commitments burning holes in your to-do list.

 

At UofC, we are encouraged to pursue research via a number of different avenues, most notably, our first and second year 340/440 courses. You are not required to publish for these courses, but for those who are keen, the opportunity is available and many do so. As for the folks who I know who have been actively publishing through medical school, they tend to be folks who have already completed graduate degrees and who are doing so now for "fun", passion or future career interests.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen