quality of education

[Guest lex]

Does anyone have any insight into quality of education as measured by residency directors/supervisors?

 

I understand that Canada has a one-tier system and that style of education has the greatest potential to make the changes with respect to individual student performance and growth. With that said, in reality small differences produce small changes. For example, timing of clerkship schedules with respect to the carms process, access to post-grad departments during undergrad, availability of courses outside of the typical med curriculum, etc.

 

Having access to students from across the country, supervisors in residency programs would likely enjoy a wide perspective on this matter.

 

For instance, while at Queen's fourth year students commented on opinions of residency supervisors that Queen's consistently produces students with an admirable degree of adeptness in the clinical setting.

 

Are there general reputations within post-grad departments that anyone could speak to?

 

I am personally asking with respect to Calgary, Dalhousie, UBC, and Queen's but I imagine comments on any school would be useful to those reading this forum.

 

Thanks very much.

[Guest Ian Wong]

I think this is a bit of a loaded question, simply because each school has their own strengths and weaknesses (no one school has a complete lock on every aspect of training a physician). In my own mind, there are certain schools which I have heard strong opinions about, both positive and negative, but I don't think that my anecdotal information should be what you judge a potential school on, nor do I really feel comfortable on talking about other schools which I have never attended. Probably the best way of determining how strong a school is to residency coordinators is to see the list of that school's recent residency matches. Schools which match the majority of their students into their specialty of choice (as opposed to a backup specialty), as well as schools with a high number of competitive specialty matches (ie. Ophtho, Plastics, Urology, Ortho, ENT, Radiology, Derm, etc) are probably schools to keep an eye out for.

 

The point probably needs to be made that at the end of the day, coming out of any Canadian school will/should give you the opportunities and tools to match into any specialty you want. At that point, it's up to you to demonstrate that you'd be a great candidate for the position.

 

I will say this, from what strider2004 has mentioned, with 75% of his class achieving not only their first choice specialty, but also their first choice program within that specialty; that's a truly remarkable accomplishment for Queen's, and they have every reason to be proud of that.

 

Ian

[Guest lex]

Thanks Ian. Sorry for asking such a loaded question - I wasn't expecting anyone to label one school the so-called best, just maybe some insight into any of the schools' personal strengths with respect to training future physicians within certain fields. The great thing about going to school in Canada is that you really can't go astray - I just wanted to gain a little more understanding of the unique characteristics of our roster of institutions.

 

For example, the northern program at UBC and the upcoming Northern Ontario Med School will most likely be prime places to be to train for a career in rural medicine because of the unique experiences they will offer.

 

It seems like overall match statistics are fairly comparable (at least in 02 and 03). Also, it's somewhat difficult to compare schools with only 2 years to consider. Is there a way to retrieve stats on matches to specific disciplines by school beyond 2002? General stats go back to 1997 on the carms site but they don't break it down by school (other than overall match rate).

 

Thanks again.

[Guest aneliz]

If they aren't on the CaRMS site, they probably aren't available...at least not for general consumption. I don't think that you would find any real differences anyway...things have been pretty stable at most schools in the past several years.

 

From what UWO's 2004 class told us, their match statistics were pretty much identical to what has happened in recent memory to UWO graduating classes....(ie most matched 1st choice discipline, many 1st choice program, many people that wanted one managed to get a competitive specialty, and some of the ones that 'suicided' themselves (ie ranked a few ultra-competitive programs with no back-up) didn't match). You also need to consider that any match stats are a reflection of the class themselves as much as the school. If, for an extreme example, it was a 'party' class that goofed off and didn't work or learn, it really wouldn't matter what the school did, they might not match to ultracompetitive spots...similarly, if nobody in the class liked ophthalmology or dermatology, they wouldn't apply and nobody would match to these 'ultracompetitive' specialties. And, if everyone wanted to be a family doctor, 100% of the class might match to first choice program... It's hard to judge the 'quality' of a school with these variables influencing the match. Short story is that you have as good a chance of matching into any discipline at any school, depending on YOUR effort towards that goal...not the school's teaching style!

 

It is hard to pinpoint individual schools as 'good' for a specific area, especially at the med school level. The mandate of all the Canadian schools is to train the 'undifferentiated' or 'stem cell' physicican. They will of course have a regional slant to this, but there isn't for example, any school that sets out to produce people that are going to be family docs or surgeons or whatever. Those decisions are made by the students come residency time. Residency programs do have a bit of a heirarchy (the order of which is often disputed depending on who you talk to) of the 'best' programs in a specific discipline in the country. But these supposed heirarchies have zero to do with the med students...as any of the schools will be able to teach you what you need to know at a student level - you aren't going to be doing liver,pancreas and small bowel transplants as a student, so the fact that there is nobody at your institution that does them does NOT make the school 'worse' than one that does. The things you really need to look at are:

 

1. Teaching style and program structure - could you learn and be happy in this type of environment?

 

2. City and social life - will you fit in here? Could you live in this city/area from a family and significant other perspective?

 

3. Money - can you afford (or are prepared to take on the debt to afford) to pay tuition here and live in this city?