Can anyone explain the value of 5 year GIM?

[GIMPCx]

I’m struggling to come up with why does exist beyond being an academic GIM. 
 

you get the same billing codes and same community jobs. If you are going to do an extra year it almost makes sense to just sub specialize in whatever and do GIM with the other gig on the side. 
 

so beyond trying to become an academic GIM who wants to have residents do their work for them (huge perk obviously but limited jobs) what’s the reason this exists?

 

@ACHQ

 

 

[hero147]

It doesn't especially not now given that the job market is opening up for a lot of specialties. 

I can understand the individual pull of a 5 year GIM if the job market sucked or if you wanted an extra leg up on the competition to work downtown in the heart of a big city. But for the majority, there's no reason to do a 5 year GIM. 

But make no mistake, GIM will become a 5 year specialty. The 4 year program will be phased out one day. Training times will only always get longer never shorter. It happened with pediatrics with their 4 year program. It will happen to family med and their future 3 year residency. It even happens outside of medicine where the Ontario teacher's college went from a 1 year to a 2 year program. 

[ACHQ]

6 hours ago, GIMPCx said:

I’m struggling to come up with why does exist beyond being an academic GIM. 
 

you get the same billing codes and same community jobs. If you are going to do an extra year it almost makes sense to just sub specialize in whatever and do GIM with the other gig on the side. 
 

so beyond trying to become an academic GIM who wants to have residents do their work for them (huge perk obviously but limited jobs) what’s the reason this exists?

 

@ACHQ

 

 

Aside from Academic GIM (which unless your into teaching and/or research, is not that appealing) there isn't a reason to do the 5 year GIM program for the community. Our GIM lead and chief of medicine don't care if someone has gone through the 4 year or 5 year program. We just hired GIM's from both.

 

Training may eventually become the norm (but it wont be like that anytime soon, as there is not indication of that), but likely it wont matter to anyone anyways the billing codes will not change (or additional ones be added) that I can guarantee (as the OMA GIM memebership group is not aiming to do that at all, we have bigger fish to fry like increasing our MRP codes, consults etc...)

[futureGP]

Maybe if you want to spend 5th year for extra skills like OB medicine, thrombosis etc. but do they really need a full year to learn? Probably not.

[Bobthebuilder]

To me being able to do 4 years is so bizarre. In Québec, GIM program is 5 years, period. 

[rmorelan]

A lot of the time periods for residencies anyway are a bit arbitrary - why are almost all of them exactly 5 years? Is there some magic there that all programs are equally difficult, and take exactly the same amount of time to train someone? That seems logically unlikely - and worse compared to other training in other countries you find differences all over the place in the length of training just further suggesting the duration is not really based on anything particularly solid. As some fields get more and more complex the training still doesn't change - for instance radiology is still 5 years but it was 5 years when we had plain films, barium fluro and maybe US studies and that is about it - now we have CT, MRI, US, Nuc med, IR, way more procedures.........still 5 years. 

So 4 vs 5 years? You would think with more training then if someone was a bit behind it would ensure they reach the needed level by the end. Otherwise if there was a reason difference in skill you would like to think it would be obvious by now. It isn't.

Edited October 16, 2023 by rmorelan