U of T 4th year elective schedule

[16cwl1]

Hi everyone,

I'm a MS2 at U of T and I have a question regarding the schedule for 4th year of clerkship (which I managed to find here https://md.utoronto.ca/sites/default/files/inline-files/2T3_Y4 clerskhip-20Jul22_FINAL.pdf). For personal reasons, I would like to maximize the amount of time I can spend in Calgary during my clerkship years and my end-goal is to match to Family Medicine at UCalgary. I know that AFMC put a limit of 12 weeks of visiting electives but I would like to ask: 

Can I spend all 12 of those weeks at Calgary? Can I do my "selectives" there as well even though I've used up the 12-week elective time? Also, I'm not familiar with the other items on the schedule (ie. doc prep week, capstone) and whether or not those are remote? 

Thank you in advance!

[itsgoingtibiaokay7]

Have some close friends and colleagues who graduated from the program not too long ago so hopefully I can contribute. 

For the past couple of years and this current year as well, we haven't had any visiting electives. Hopefully, that'll change by the time you get to 4th year but you are able to request away electives at any school, as long as they have the capacity to do so. If anything, the challenge I would foresee is logistical in setting up back-to-back electives at the same school, but I would imagine this to be not too difficult if you were interested in FM (multiple FM sites at each school, can also do related electives at Calgary such as IM, palliative, hospitalist, etc.). 

Selectives are generally chosen from a pre-created list from the program, which means they are all at locations around Toronto and the surrounding area. They do allow for some wiggle room in creating your own selectives but they generally have to be with someone who's affiliated with UofT so I don't think you would be able to go to away schools to do those. 

Document prep week is purely time for you to work on finishing up your applications before submitting them. There's no other academic responsibilities at the time nor did we have to go into any classes. 

Capstone week is the final week of med school that consists of a few lectures. These are generally in person. 

Hope this helps! 

[16cwl1]

1 hour ago, itsgoingtibiaokay7 said:

Have some close friends and colleagues who graduated from the program not too long ago so hopefully I can contribute. 

For the past couple of years and this current year as well, we haven't had any visiting electives. Hopefully, that'll change by the time you get to 4th year but you are able to request away electives at any school, as long as they have the capacity to do so. If anything, the challenge I would foresee is logistical in setting up back-to-back electives at the same school, but I would imagine this to be not too difficult if you were interested in FM (multiple FM sites at each school, can also do related electives at Calgary such as IM, palliative, hospitalist, etc.). 

Selectives are generally chosen from a pre-created list from the program, which means they are all at locations around Toronto and the surrounding area. They do allow for some wiggle room in creating your own selectives but they generally have to be with someone who's affiliated with UofT so I don't think you would be able to go to away schools to do those. 

Document prep week is purely time for you to work on finishing up your applications before submitting them. There's no other academic responsibilities at the time nor did we have to go into any classes. 

Capstone week is the final week of med school that consists of a few lectures. These are generally in person. 

Hope this helps! 

you're the best, thank you so much for the clarification!  

[Edict]

On 9/29/2022 at 8:53 PM, 16cwl1 said:

Hi everyone,

I'm a MS2 at U of T and I have a question regarding the schedule for 4th year of clerkship (which I managed to find here https://md.utoronto.ca/sites/default/files/inline-files/2T3_Y4 clerskhip-20Jul22_FINAL.pdf). For personal reasons, I would like to maximize the amount of time I can spend in Calgary during my clerkship years and my end-goal is to match to Family Medicine at UCalgary. I know that AFMC put a limit of 12 weeks of visiting electives but I would like to ask: 

Can I spend all 12 of those weeks at Calgary? Can I do my "selectives" there as well even though I've used up the 12-week elective time? Also, I'm not familiar with the other items on the schedule (ie. doc prep week, capstone) and whether or not those are remote? 

Thank you in advance!

I strongly advise against spending all 12 weeks in Calgary. Beyond 4 weeks, you've maximized your interest in Calgary, and they "get it", you want Calgary, but just because you want to be there doesn't mean they want you, so you have to remain competitive for other programs. Spending too much time in one city can begin to signal to other programs that you have no interest in training there and spending too much time in one program can actually hurt you if they begin to realize they don't actually like working with you. I wouldn't take that risk and I would still spread out my interest. It would be fair to spend 4 weeks in Calgary, maybe 2 weeks in Edmonton, 2 weeks in BC. Then you can do the rest wherever you like and probably should spend some time at your home school.  That would signal your interest in matching out west while still making it clear where you want to interview and match. There are so many other ways to demonstrate interest, you could arrange to meet with the PD while there, you can mention your ties to Calgary in your interview etc. People who want to end up somewhere will make it known, but I would caution coming off as such to other programs. 

[robclem21]

6 hours ago, Edict said:

I strongly advise against spending all 12 weeks in Calgary. Beyond 4 weeks, you've maximized your interest in Calgary, and they "get it", you want Calgary, but just because you want to be there doesn't mean they want you, so you have to remain competitive for other programs. Spending too much time in one city can begin to signal to other programs that you have no interest in training there. I wouldn't take that risk and I would still spread out my interest. It would be fair to spend 4 weeks in Calgary, maybe 2 weeks in Edmonton, 2 weeks in BC. Then you can do the rest wherever you like and probably should spend some time at your home school.  That would signal your interest in matching out west while still making it clear where you want to interview and match. There are so many other ways to demonstrate interest, you could arrange to meet with the PD while there, you can mention your ties to Calgary in your interview etc. People who want to end up somewhere will make it known, but I would caution coming off as such to other programs. 

This ^^. I understand there are personal reasons you might want to physically be in Calgary during this time, but this 3-4 month window is probably your most important in medical school. Pending some catastrophic incident requiring you to be there (in which case you would be better off just taking an LoA), this is not the time to prioritize anything other than your career. Putting all your eggs in one basket (one specialty, in one city) is a bad idea.

[frenchpress]

Agree with the above you probably want to spread out where you go to maximize your chances. All that said, Calgary family medicine has one of the worst match rates in the country - they have had many open spots after the first round several years in a row, and with Danielle Smith just elected as premier I cannot see that improving next year.  It is not a competitive program right now, nor is Edmonton, which is at least nearby. Both programs can be a bit picky if they don’t think you actually want family and/or want to be in Alberta. But If you actually have ties to the province, you have a good case for why family med, and you don’t say / do anything stupid to get yourself red flagged in references or interviews, your chances of matching to Calgary (or a back up of Edmonton) for family med are extremely high.