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Parallel plan with IM


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I will be starting clerkship soon and want to know do our chances of marching to IM diminish if we use it as parallel plan option with another surgery. 
let me elaborate, I am thinking of applying to CSx but due to the small program size want to parallel with IM. 

my question is would that work to my detriment? 
I am planning to do 8 weeks of electives in CSx, 8 weeks in IM and sub specialties , 2 weeks in another discipline to meet AFMC criteria. 
Do IM programs look unfavourably at people who did surgical electives as well? 

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5 hours ago, cardiomed said:

Do IM programs look unfavourably at people who did surgical electives as well? 

By using my amazing powers of deduction, I'm assuming you're interested in the heart, and are going to primarily apply cardiac surgery but have IM as a backup to go the cardiology route. That's totally fine, just explain it with that story, although I would tell IM that you are interested in the heart, and were exploring both aspects but decided to apply IM as cardiac medicine is the way to go, and basically say the opposite to cardiac surgery. The only risk is that cardiac surgery is relatively compeditive, so you prefer that with IM as a backup, you'll have to balance your efforts and time to make a compeditive application while keeping IM open as a possibility.

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15 hours ago, cardiomed said:

I will be starting clerkship soon and want to know do our chances of marching to IM diminish if we use it as parallel plan option with another surgery. 
let me elaborate, I am thinking of applying to CSx but due to the small program size want to parallel with IM. 

my question is would that work to my detriment? 
I am planning to do 8 weeks of electives in CSx, 8 weeks in IM and sub specialties , 2 weeks in another discipline to meet AFMC criteria. 
Do IM programs look unfavourably at people who did surgical electives as well? 

GIM staff here (recently graduated). I think with IM becoming competitive that this may be harder to do, although I think it would still be possible. Back when I applied in 2015-2016 people backed up with IM all the time and it worked out.


I guess the real question is: Would you be happy doing IM if you weren't able to do CSx? If the answer is yes than you should do your parallel plan. I would suggest applying far and wide and ranking all programs that interview you or else you would run the risk of not matching.

Also just be careful if you ultimately want to focus on one area in IM (e.g. in your case the heart?/cardiology). You have to go through the match again and if you don't match there are NO do-overs (one shot all). So again ask your self if you are happy with doing GIM if you don't match to cardiology (or whatever subspecialty). I guess if you are gun-ho about it and apply everywhere in Canada, you will likely match, but still a risk, to lower that risk you should be happy with either GIM, or going to the U.S. match (where they have tons and tons of spots and you will almost certainly match to whatever subspecialty).

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Thank you everyone for your great and detailed explanation. It is great to hear that it is not doomed, and yes you are absolutely correct I am thinking of doing Cardiac Surgery or Cardiology, and to be honest I would be happy with either or, since Interventional Cardiology nowadays has lots of procedures.

I think I will do 2 week electives at various centres (if they open up next year) in CSx and the rest will be IM and its subspecialties. 

Thank you again :)

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Hey, I was wondering if you guys think that, given IMs increasing competitiveness, it is safe to apply only to IM? (I’m a French-speaker studying at Université de Montréal but I’m bilingual so I will be applying everywhere in Canada). I personally was planning to do that, since I can apply to every program and I am planning to max out my electives in IM and the subspecialties I’m interested in (rheumatology/endocrinology). However, I’m kind of worried now given the current trend (more 1st choice apps + lots of people parallel plan into it).

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16 hours ago, Sonostudenti67 said:

 

 

Hey, I was wondering if you guys think that, given IMs increasing competitiveness, it is safe to apply only to IM? (I’m a French-speaker studying at Université de Montréal but I’m bilingual so I will be applying everywhere in Canada). I personally was planning to do that, since I can apply to every program and I am planning to max out my electives in IM and the subspecialties I’m interested in (rheumatology/endocrinology). However, I’m kind of worried now given the current trend (more 1st choice apps + lots of people parallel plan into it).

IM has increased in popularity for sure, but I think if you are gunning for it you should still be OK, as long as you apply and do electives broadly. That being said there is always a risk of going unmatched, but that can even happen if you parallel plan/back up.

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