Windsor

[Guest aneliz]

Hey all,

 

For those of you applying to UWO, make sure that you read the following from the Faculty website:

 

 

Our educational commitment to rural and regional medicine:

 

The Southwestern Ontario Medical Education Network (SWOMEN) is a partnership of communities throughout Southwest Ontario that includes Windsor, community hospitals and the University of Windsor providing rural / regional and Windsor based medical education and training experience to undergraduate and postgraduate trainees from the University of Western Ontario.

 

The Clinical Clerkship, or third year of the medical program, is constituted so that all clerks will be expected to spend time outside of London in the SWOMEN teaching sites. It is important that applicants to the UWO Undergraduate program understand that they will be mandated to spend part or possibly all of third year away from London. There are no exceptions to the policy. By accepting an offer of admission to this program you are consenting to participate fully in this approach to clinical learning.

 

 

This has been a source of considerable stress in our class because we were not made aware of this BEFORE we accepted Western...make sure that you ARE aware of this...because, as stated, there will be NO exceptions to this policy!

[Guest blinknoodle]

Hey Aneliz,

 

Thanks for bringing that to our attention.

I find it funny how they say they are committed to the region, yet say you won't be in London - haha.

 

Anyhow, I was wondering whether it is also applicable to fourth year as well? Or can electives be anywhere?

 

Thanks,

-blinknoodle

[Guest JSS02]

You can do 4th year electives almost anywhere (even outside of Canada). People tend to do most or all of them at programs where they plan to apply for residency.

[Guest lcloh]

They do care about London, but London is saturated compared to the rest of the region. Being the regional health care centre, many Londoners are in a much better boat than their counterparts in Sarnia, Chatham, Windsor, etc.

 

That being said, it was a considerable source of stress in the second-year class, but it seems to have diminished somewhat - in fact to the point that some people are actually reasonably peachy keen on doing a few rotations in Windsor - including myself, i'm looking at Fam Meds and Psych there.

 

L

[Guest mydream88]

so how much of 3rd year on average is spent in Windsor?

 

mydream88

[Guest TimmyMax]

Hey,

 

As much as you want- we get to choose if we would like to spend 3, 6 or 12 months there for clerkship. Myself, I am looking to do 6 months there, because the opportunities sound too good to miss- a much shorter totem pole (thus an increased chance to actually get in there and do stuff), a hospital that is eager to impress, and excellent facilities from what I hear. I guess conceivably you could end up spending 0 months in Windsor, but I'm not too sure about that one.

 

Best of luck!

Timmy

[Guest mydream88]

thanks TimmyMax

mydream88

[Guest lcloh]

With the increased interest in part-time electives, it's highly likely that 0 months in Windsor will also become a possiblity on the flipside.

 

L

[Guest UWOMED2005]

Thing is, I think the admin will have to deny some people Windsor for some rotations, whereas others they'll have to force people to go there.

 

I could see everyone wanting to do Peds and Obs/gyn there. In fact, I was supposed to go there for Peds and Obs/gyn only to get shot down. . . I'm pretty pissed and currently trying to arrange to do those rotations anywhere from Chatham to Timbuktu (based on reports from my classmates on the situation in London.)

 

Psych and family I think are neutral. . . as it is many students go out of London to do these rotations. And people just don't seem to get all worked up on where they do psych or family.

 

Surgery. . . I could see people very eager to go to Windsor OR trying to avoid it like the ebola monkey. If your interest is Gen surg, you just care about getting as much hands on as possible during your clerkship, and you're not too caught up in playing the political game in terms of getting reference letters from all the ophthalmologists, then Windsor could be better than London. One of my classmates was doing colonoscopies from start to finish there. On the other hand, if you want to get into a competitive surgical subspecialty and as a result don't care if you had good exposure to surgery, just care that you get a reference letter that says you had good exposure than you're shooting yourself in the foot in Windsor: most of the surgeons there aren't as well known in academic circles, so there isn't the same name recognition.

 

I'd be surprised if there were people lining up to do medicine in Windsor. My guess is you'll see the opposite, and some people will end up having to go there whether they like it or not. Then again, they were able to easily fit my entire class into CTU: I didn't feel there was any competition for access to patients or procedures. I wouldn't be surprised if they could fit all 133 2006ers in London for CTU.