Any non-acedemic questions regarding UWO?

[Guest drspd]

Hey all,

 

If you have any non-academic (i.e. GPA cut off, MCAT cut off, course pre-requisites, etc.) questions, please feel free to voice them and we'll try to answer you to the best of our abilities.

 

DRSPD

UWO Meds 2005

[Guest Ian Wong]

Hi DrSPD (mountain-bike much?),

 

Welcome to the forums. Would you mind dropping me an email at some point when it's convenient for you? I'm at: mdpremie@yahoo.com I'd just like to talk with you regarding a project that I'm working on.

 

As a question devoted to yourself and UWOMed2005, how are you finding UWO Med? Are there any things that you would have liked to have known about before entering UWO? Are you finding it easy to balance between school and outside interests? How cohesive do you find you and your classmates, and how do you like your curriculum?

 

I think I've asked enough questions for one message. Maybe you and UWOMed2005 can answer different ones, to save you some typing!

 

Ian

UBC, Med 3

[Guest drspd]

UWO Meds Rocks.

 

Things I would have liked to have known prior to entering medicine (general):

The shear amount of work. Everyone tells you that it's tons of work, but you don't truly realize it until you are in.

 

Balancing school and outside interests:

Leading up to exams we are obviously a lot more busy, however, during our more down time we have a lot more leisure time which allows us to participate in a wealth of extracurricular activites here at UWO, as well as travel to visit our families and friends. Again, close to exams it's pretty tough to balance things but everyone deals with exams differently and everyone has different study habits.

 

Class cohesiveness:

Our class is one of the most cohesive classes in Ontario. At Med Games, an olympic style thing held in Quebec that invites all the Ontario and Quebec schools to compete in sporting events, our class seemed to be doing things together while the other classes were a lot more spread out... Everyone has their own group of friends but it seems that when we hang out as a class a lot more often. Perhaps it's living in London that creates this cohesiveness as the vast majority of us left our family and close friends behind in our home towns.

 

Best regards,

 

DRSPD

UWO Meds 20005

[Guest Ian Wong]

20005 eh? Med school always SEEMED an eternity, now you're truly making it happen!

 

Ian

UBC, Med 3

[Guest arcticaguy]

Hi all,

How does London, in terms of a med student's lifestyle, compare against cities like Hamilton and Halifax, in your opinion. What I'm trying to get at is what it's like to be a uwo med student in London. Any special distinguishing features?

Mind you, I've never been to London, hence the question

thanks!

[Guest drspd]

Academically:

Being a medical student in london is great. One of the main reasons I came to UWO was because the 3rd and 4th year clerks (3rd and 4th year medical students) are given a wealth of responsibility. Many other schools restrict their clerks to taking histories and occasionally doing other things. Here at UWO, the clerks are expected to serve as jr. residents (except they can't prescribe drugs, nor make final diagnosis).

 

Socially:

As far as extra-curriculars, night life, etc. UWO has a nutorious reputation of being a party school - at least for the undergraduates. Analagous to this, there are always great parties going on at pubs, night clubs, etc. We also have interfaculty pub nights, pool tournaments, etc.

 

In addition, we participate in many of the UWO campus wide intramurral sports and recreational activities.

 

As far as London goes. It is a much smaller town than both Hamilton and Halifax. I personally love the fact that there is less traffic and a little more of a friendly atmosphere. There is always something going on here, and if that isn't enough for you, Hamilton is an hour away and Toronto is two hours away.

 

Best regards,

 

DRSPD

UWO Meds 2005

[Guest UWOMED2005]

Actually, London (about 400,000) has a larger population than Halifax (about 300,000). . .

 

Having done my undergrad in Halifax, I think I can provide a unique perspective to this discussion. I'd have to say I preferred Halifax - for UNDERGRAD. Halifax has the close to the most, if not the most, bars per capita in Canada and with numerous post-secondary institutions I found it more of a party-scene than London. Of course I was in undergrad in Halifax and Med School here in London - don't get to party as much so maybe it's just me. Also, Halifax has the uniqueness of being the center of the maritimes, whereas London is just your typical Ontario town - not really unique from Waterloo, Guelph, Cambridge, or Windsor. London is like a much much smaller Toronto without the diversity. If you don't like Ontario, do not come here. And, finally, there is no "Split Crow" in London, which is a huge detractor for, well, me (I love that place).

 

Another great advantage to Halifax is that the area around the Universities & Hospitals is MUCH more compact than London. Living in the Robie/Spring Garden area you would never had to walk more than 15 minutes to either the Hospitals or the University whereas in London many students cave and by a car by 2nd year, and a car is an absolute must for 3rd year clerkships. If that's an issue for you London might not be ideal.

 

All in all, I'm glad I was in Halifax for undergrad but I'm also glad I'm at Western for Meds. Dalhousie was a great school but significantly underfunded compared to Western. The medical library here at Western is about 3 times the size of the library at Dalhousie and Dal didn't have a learning resource center (computers, medical resources) to compare to the one at Western. In fact, when I was at Dal last year all of the computers were hopelessly out of date (granted that might have changed, but I consider that unlikely). Also, Western has some of the best hospital/clerkship resources available to medical students in Canada. I understand Dalhousie's clerkships are excellent as well, but the NS health system has suffered from cutbacks and the medical techno-gadgets are better in London than in NS. While I'd much prefer to be in Halifax on Weekends or Thursday night, both Western and London has enough going for it that it can keep you entertained when you're not studying cardiovascular physiology or neuroanatomy, or actively contributing to the Med school community (the med students here at Western are in particular a fun bunch to hit Molly Blooms or the Ceeps with). And if you truly despise London, you can always do what some people in our class do - head to Toronto for the weekend. It's only 2 hrs away and you can almost always find a ride.

[Guest arcticaguy]

Thank you so much for your perspective on this topic. I'm just itching to get to London now

cheers.