is it very unlikely to match to mcgill for residency from u of t if you speak no French? Even if you did an elective at McGill? (Assuming you could even do I)

[Total Gunner]

^

[rarason]

What specialty are you interested in? I was under the impression there were only certain specialties where you don't need to be fluent in French 

[usmdthrowaway]

I feel like one could probably match there, but it would probably be a very bad idea if you had no French. I did an elective there, and that would cut out communication with a large chunk of your patients. For IM, they haven’t said it’s mandatory to speak French. Not sure if other specialties have different policies.

[beamscientist]

be very careful about wanting to match without any french... i interviewed at McGill and while they said i didn't need to speak french they randomly busted out some of the interview in french to test me. friends who are residents said that they speak to many of their patients in french and i feel as a doctor if i couldn't speak to my patients in their mother tongue that they understood best, i would be doing a disservice to them

[dooogs]

How about as a staff family doc? Anybody know?

[DocBrown9]

I visited McGill while applying for a surgical specialty. I was told directly by the program director that french is not needed. He stressed this and even used the fact that they take Visa trainees who don't speak any french as proof. So you can't definately do surgical specialties without french (especially since it's one of the more OR focused schools). I'd say clinic was about 50% of patients speaking French but most could understand some English. That being said, it can be frustrating to try to interact with patients when neither of you can understand each other so you would likely want to learn French if you matched there. 

[ellorie]

For what it's worth, when I interviewed for psychiatry at McGill 5 years ago, they told me that French was not needed.  In PSYCHIATRY.  That was clearly untrue and I ranked them last.

I think they often do not present a balanced perspective of how hard it actually is to be there and not speak French.

[Hellothere77]

2 hours ago, ellorie said:

For what it's worth, when I interviewed for psychiatry at McGill 5 years ago, they told me that French was not needed.  In PSYCHIATRY.  That was clearly untrue and I ranked them last.

I think they often do not present a balanced perspective of how hard it actually is to be there and not speak French.

It's changed since then. They were taking IMGs in psych who never learned French throughout residency, and at some point they realized that was a terrible idea in Montreal. They do part of the interview in French now to ensure that communication is adequate for psych.

And yes, you're right, the school as a whole does a terrible job of giving applicants a realistic picture of what is expected in terms of language.

[bearded frog]

8 hours ago, DocBrown95 said:

I visited McGill while applying for a surgical specialty. I was told directly by the program director that french is not needed. He stressed this and even used the fact that they take Visa trainees who don't speak any french as proof. So you can't definately do surgical specialties without french (especially since it's one of the more OR focused schools). I'd say clinic was about 50% of patients speaking French but most could understand some English. That being said, it can be frustrating to try to interact with patients when neither of you can understand each other so you would likely want to learn French if you matched there. 

typical surgeons, cutting transcends language, we don't need to talk to the patients

[medigeek]

There was a thread here about someone who matched FM there and heavily struggled due to their inability to speak French. Don't do it. Clearly there's a huge disconnect within McGill on this. 

[Snowmen]

As a Montrealer, it's completely false that you could do residency at McGill and not speak french. They may be "english" hospitals but they still have a large proportion of french patients that can't be avoided and even if you could avoid seeing those patients, your training would suffer since, for instance, you'd completely cut yourself off from some subspecialties for which the MUHC or other McGill hospitals are referral centers.