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"Time is also provided in the curriculum for students to explore career opportunities."


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From my understanding of the curriculum, Western has no structured opportunities for research (UBC has this). The closest thing to this that I see is something called "Experiential Learning" in years 1 & 2 - but this seems to be a project with a wide scope and is probably not actually helpful for CaRMS - correct me if I'm wrong.

The curriculum page says "Time is also provided in the curriculum for students to explore career opportunities." --> What do students do exactly? Does the faculty help setup an arrangement with physicians/scientists or teaching hospitals? 

What advice would you give to an M1 to be competitive during CaRMs if they already have an idea of the speciality they want to match to (e.g. Internal medicine)?

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1. You would be a good candidate for SRTP where you pick a project from a list and commit to it for 2 summers and you get paid (https://www.schulich.uwo.ca/research/student_trainee_programs/student/srtp/index.html). As for the research in the experiential learning course, it can be whatever you want, it is a way for the school to encourage all students to be involved in at least 1 research project. They provide a list of projects that you can pick from or you can pursue your own project and use that to fulfill your longitudinal research requirements.

2. Honestly that sentence is vague but it may be alluding to the fact that you have 1 day off a week which is nice for scheduling OCLOs, volunteering, research, studying, relaxing.

3. As a pre-clerk you can network, work on your CV, and ensure you don't burn out before clerkship.

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The experiential learning is entirely what you make of it. So far I've gotten a poster presentation at a conference and am working on a first author pub from my experiential learning research project so it definitely can be useful for CaRMS in my experience. 

Much of that career exploration will be set up by you, not by the school. The nice thing is I've found physicians to be much more responsive to random emails from medical students than from premeds, so if you're used to never hearing anything back that will change (not true in all cases but just a general statement)

Also want to echo yobologna - one of the best things you can do for yourself right now is focus on settling into school, exploring your interests outside of medicine, creating a strong circle of support, and not burning out before clerkship. It's nice to have a little foundation if you know what you're interested in but the first two years of med school are (in most cases) not make or break for successful matching. 

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8 hours ago, CHG said:

The experiential learning is entirely what you make of it. So far I've gotten a poster presentation at a conference and am working on a first author pub from my experiential learning research project so it definitely can be useful for CaRMS in my experience. 

That's really great to hear! I came across this page about SROP, is this what you did? On the curriculum page about Experiential Learning it says "this course will also contain a module of original research developed with a mentor", so I'm guessing you apply to do research in the summer with this same mentor?

Also, thanks to @yobologna for the link, I see that the SRTP deadline is January 2021 where as SROP is February 2021. Do students essentially need to decide whether their Experiential Learning project is more interesting to them than the list of SRTP topics and then pick one to do in the summer?

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13 hours ago, yobologna said:

1. You would be a good candidate for SRTP where you pick a project from a list and commit to it for 2 summers and you get paid (https://www.schulich.uwo.ca/research/student_trainee_programs/student/srtp/index.html). As for the research in the experiential learning course, it can be whatever you want, it is a way for the school to encourage all students to be involved in at least 1 research project. They provide a list of projects that you can pick from or you can pursue your own project and use that to fulfill your longitudinal research requirements.

2. Honestly that sentence is vague but it may be alluding to the fact that you have 1 day off a week which is nice for scheduling OCLOs, volunteering, research, studying, relaxing.

3. As a pre-clerk you can network, work on your CV, and ensure you don't burn out before clerkship.

Thank you, I love a numbered response! A few follow-up questions.

1. How do you compare SRTP and SROP, would you say the difference comes down to whether you find your Experiential Learning topic more interesting than the SRTP topics?

2. When you say that the day off can be used for research, are you referring to working on your Experiential Learning project?

3. What do you think of the Non-credit Pre-Clerkship summer electives? There is a research and a clinical option. Would I be correct that the clinical option is sort of more in-depth OCLO? The research option is also fairly short, 4 weeks (minimum). Is there a reason a student would choose this route of doing research rather than SROP or SRTP?

4. Lastly, what are your thoughts on the International opportunities available to medical students - are these worthwhile or are they sort of "fluffy" the way an undergrad going abroad for a medical mission trip is seen as "cool but probably pointless"? A few of the International summer school courses looked cool lol ("An Introduction to the Fascinating World of Cardiology").

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On 6/27/2021 at 12:42 AM, alrightythen said:

Thank you, I love a numbered response! A few follow-up questions.

1. How do you compare SRTP and SROP, would you say the difference comes down to whether you find your Experiential Learning topic more interesting than the SRTP topics?

2. When you say that the day off can be used for research, are you referring to working on your Experiential Learning project?

3. What do you think of the Non-credit Pre-Clerkship summer electives? There is a research and a clinical option. Would I be correct that the clinical option is sort of more in-depth OCLO? The research option is also fairly short, 4 weeks (minimum). Is there a reason a student would choose this route of doing research rather than SROP or SRTP?

4. Lastly, what are your thoughts on the International opportunities available to medical students - are these worthwhile or are they sort of "fluffy" the way an undergrad going abroad for a medical mission trip is seen as "cool but probably pointless"? A few of the International summer school courses looked cool lol ("An Introduction to the Fascinating World of Cardiology").

1. The main difference between SRTP and SROP is that SRTP is 2 summers and has to be individual, SROP is one summer and can be in a small group. Since SROP is shorter they want it to be built off of your existing work so you are more likely to accomplish something in the shorter allotted time.

2. I am referring to any type of research. Some people have 3 different research projects they are involved in, one of which counts as their experiential learning longitudinal research requirement. Other students have just 1 project they are involved in and that's the one that serves as their experiential learning research component.

3. NPSEs can be a good way to explore your career interests beyond OCLOs and also network. The research option is not very popular as far as I know but if a student wants to get a better understanding of what it's like to be a clinician-scientists without committing to a full project that may be a place to start.

4. It depends how you define "worthwhile". I'm sure if you talk to people that did them they would tell you they had an amazing time, learned a lot, and would recommend it. International placements and NPSEs aren't going to make or break your CaRMS application. Most students use their summers before clerkship to relax, continue to work on their research or other extracurricular projects, possibly study a little bit, and/or work part/full-time. 

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