CARMS APP - ECs

[ninjanerd2006]

Hello!

 

I am planning on applying for CARMS 2026 Match. I am looking to get an advice on how important are Extracurricular and Research activities are for the match. 

Mine are as follow:

- 1st year representative for two different societies.

-I have tutoring young children for two years. I volunteered as an admin, reading/writing volunteer.

-I was a leader for a statistic group.

-Worked in a lab during COVID-19 for 8 months.  

-Currently I am volunteering as a supervisor for a non profit organization that provide pre-crisis resources to those with mental health issues. I also worked there as emotional support volunteer.

- I am also working on a health inequality project (hoping to get published and have poster presentation) and social prescribing project (will be getting published for sure. I am involve in applying for funding, writing up the project, analysis etc). 
 

- I am also a writer where I write on conditions presented in dermatology. 
 

-I was also a scholar mentor for a year working with young children who are interested in higher education. 
 

I no longer hold a position into any societies at my school beside being a member. Are my ECs and Research Activities enough ? Any suggestion is welcome. 
 

I am interested in Family Med, Psychiatry and Dermatology (I haven’t really decided it yet). 

[robclem21]

To be honest nobody really cares about ECs for CaRMS and you will be amazed how quickly most people just glance over everything you've listed here and ignore it. This is because this is what 99% of applications contain and it doesn't differentiate applicants. The only thing that matters going forward is your evaluations on your rotation, your reference letters, and the connections you make with staff and residents in your field (via electives, rotations, research, networking etc.). Since you are still 2 years away from CaRMS you should use your time to figure out what you want to do. If it is dermatology, now would be a good time to start getting involved and connecting with dermatologists for research projects and shadowing. If its psych or family medicine, you have lots of time to figure it out still because those are much less competitive fields and good reference letters and a bit of interest will be enough for you to match.

Research in an "unrelated" field can be helpful, but for specialties like derm, plastics, ophtho, surgery, you will want research projects specific to that field (and again more for the connections than the research productivity as nobody actually cares about the results of your project).

[bearded frog]

20 hours ago, ninjanerd2006 said:

- I am also working on a health inequality project (hoping to get published and have poster presentation) and social prescribing project (will be getting published for sure. I am involve in applying for funding, writing up the project, analysis etc). 

- I am also a writer where I write on conditions presented in dermatology.

Quoted the stuff that could possibly relevant. Essentially, for residency unless its spectacular or unique they don't care about anything that doesn't require you to be a doctor. IE volunteering that mattered for med school apps don't matter anymore. As the above poster says they want impressive/unique stuff relevant to your desired specialty. Stuff on diversity, ethics, equity, etc. is good, but will be secondary to stuff relevant to your specialty. The writing stuff would be relevant depending on where you write and what the audience is. Also they don't care if you applied for funding for research etc. unless it's a prestigious grant or you publish as an author.

[ninjanerd2006]

4 hours ago, bearded frog said:

Quoted the stuff that could possibly relevant. Essentially, for residency unless its spectacular or unique they don't care about anything that doesn't require you to be a doctor. IE volunteering that mattered for med school apps don't matter anymore. As the above poster says they want impressive/unique stuff relevant to your desired specialty. Stuff on diversity, ethics, equity, etc. is good, but will be secondary to stuff relevant to your specialty. The writing stuff would be relevant depending on where you write and what the audience is. Also they don't care if you applied for funding for research etc. unless it's a prestigious grant or you publish as an author.

Thank you. Yes, it will be published. What kind of unique/impressive stuff do they look for concerning the desired specialty besides producing paper in the relevant specialty?

[ninjanerd2006]

 

22 hours ago, robclem21 said:

To be honest nobody really cares about ECs for CaRMS and you will be amazed how quickly most people just glance over everything you've listed here and ignore it. This is because this is what 99% of applications contain and it doesn't differentiate applicants. The only thing that matters going forward is your evaluations on your rotation, your reference letters, and the connections you make with staff and residents in your field (via electives, rotations, research, networking etc.). Since you are still 2 years away from CaRMS you should use your time to figure out what you want to do. If it is dermatology, now would be a good time to start getting involved and connecting with dermatologists for research projects and shadowing. If its psych or family medicine, you have lots of time to figure it out still because those are much less competitive fields and good reference letters and a bit of interest will be enough for you to match.

Research in an "unrelated" field can be helpful, but for specialties like derm, plastics, ophtho, surgery, you will want research projects specific to that field (and again more for the connections than the research productivity as nobody actually cares about the results of your project).

Thank you.

[attempt2]

Contrary to the advice given above, I argue that ECs matter quite a lot. Competitive programs especially derm have a very large pool to select their interviewees (~80 people from which they can interview around 20-30 per school). There is a huge pressure to make 20+ publications, but a good number of individuals with <10 publications will end up matching. I know of at least one new derm resident who essentially had no research but very impressive ECs, with interviews all over Canada (late pivot to derm with no network). Have a look at the CaRMS pages for each respective school within the derm category, and their specific preferences i.e leadership, artistic qualities, etc..

Also, quite obvious, but ECs will give you some content to talk about during interviews.

[Bambi]

I cannot speak to derm, no experience here. However, I applied to and was accepted for a highly competitive surgical residency. ECs were absolutely irrelevant, never came up and certainly were not a consideration for the Interviewers. As regards publications, research and other experience, not one gunner was selected. The major factor for consideration was whether or not the applicant would be "a good fit" for the team! I was deemed to fit this criteria although I had the least knowledge of all other applicants. I add this for what it is worth.