Community Medicine

[Guest macdaddyeh]

Greetings:

 

Haven't posted in a while. Just wondering if anyone out there can comment on a residency in community medicine: competitiveness, quality of programs, pros and cons etc.

 

I've done some carms reading but just want some opinions to fill in the blanks.

 

Thanks

[Guest Ian Wong]

Heya,

 

Welcome back to the forums. I hope Mac is treating you well.

 

Community medicine is one of those sleeper residencies that you just don't hear much about (kind of like Occupational Medicine or Nuclear Medicine). I never really encountered it in med school, and don't hear much talk about it. In general, I think its competitiveness is somewhere around Family Medicine in general. The fact that there are nowhere near as many Community Med spots as Family Med spots is counterbalanced by the fact that few people apply to Community Med. If you show interest in this field, you have a pretty good shot at landing one of your top 3 choices. I think UBC's Community Med residency is designed in such a way that you complete the requirements for a Family Med residency, and therefore you can be double-boarded in both Community Med and Family Med. I'm not sure if that's the same across all the other Canadian programs, but it'd be something I'd look for.

 

As far as quality of programs, I think the best way to go about this would be contacting some of the residents at your home program, and see what they thought as they did their interviews.

 

As far as pros and cons, I guess the major pro is that the things that you do, as far as epidemiology and community health, have the ability to affect people on a widespread basis, rather than one person at a time in the clinic. Health planning is something that is pitifully done in North America, particularly the lack of emphasis on preventative care, and one would hope that there would be an increased emphasis on this in the future. For cons, I guess it'd depend on what sort of interests you hold. I assume that this type of job would need a pretty big cast of support staff, and that may be geographically limiting. I assume the lifestyle is probably pretty benign, but your income ceiling is probably going to be lower than many other specialties that have a five year residency commitment.

 

Ian