R-3 Positions

[Guest MDHopeful04]

Hi,

 

I was looking at the CARMS webpage and saw the following:

 

R-3 Positions

A limited number of opportunities for training certification exists. Residents apply in the Fall of their second year to the following available programs:

 

Emergency Medicine (accredited by the College of Family Physicians of Canada)

Care of the Elderly (accredited by the College of Family Physicians of Canada)

Obstetrics

 

etc.

 

Would anyone knwo what are R-3 Positions? Are there R-2/R-1 Positions? If so, what are they?

 

Thanks.

[Guest marbledust]

R-3 refers to a 3rd year resident. When you see "R-3 programs" is refers to additional training offered to graduates of 2 year family medicine programs. These may be physicians who just finished their training, or practicing family docs who desire more training in a specific area.

 

There are a number of third year programs for family medicine. The one year emergency program is probably the best known and most popular. But there are many other opportunities ranging from sports medicine to pallative care, depending on the university running the program.

 

R-1 is a first year resident (in any program, not just family med); R-2 is a second year...etc

 

If you see the term PGY-1, PGY-2, etc it refers to "post graduate year 1), etc. The terms are used often interchangably, but not always. Somebody else may wish to give a more detailed answer - but for example:

 

A resident in a 5 year orthopedic surgery program, takes 6 years to complete the program due to taking an extra year to conduct research research between the offical 2nd and 3rd year of their program. If they are in the last year of the program they would be considered a PGY-5, but an R-6.

 

Does my example make sense?

[Guest gucio93]

Marbledust is correct except with reference to the difference between the "R" and "PGY" designations. It is true that "R" stands for "resident" and "PGY" stands for "post graduate year." The change from the former to the latter has occured within the last few years and thus they are still used interchangeably. Here's what they refer to:

Intern_____PGY-1

R1________PGY-2

R2________PGY-3, etc.

This applies across all residencies.

[Guest marbledust]

Actually I am correct - my reference to the information I provided regarding R and PGY and possible differences came from a resident in exactly the situation I described. A 6th year resident in a 5 year program is, at least at Calgary, referred to as PGY-5/R6.

 

If you are in a medical/surgical scientist program and take an extra 3 years to finish your residency, you stay at whatever PGY level you were at when you began your research. If you started at the beginning of your PGY-4 year and took three years to do reseach, you are techincally considered a PGY-4 the entire time until you actually move into the clinical PGY-5 year. You may very well be in your 6th or 7th year of training, but are still considered a PGY-4. But you can say you are an R6. It doesn't really matter, because PGY is the correct term and that's what your pay is based on, not the R-whatever.

 

Information provided to me by a CCFP(EM) grad: R3 is sometimes used to refer those in a third year family med program, but the correct term is PGY-3.

 

Probably because the US still uses "intern" then PGY-1/R2 might be correct in the States. My sources of information don't know and neither do I.

 

Comes straight from the horse's mouth...I didn't make this up

[Guest Ian Wong]

There's a third wrinkle to the question. In the US, your residency is often separate from your internship. For example, in Radiology, you need to do a 1 year internship, and then 4 years of Radiology, and you apply to each program separately; internships may not be included in your US residency program like they are in Canada. The R refers only to your residency, and NOT your internship.

 

For that reason, if you were an intern in the US, you'd either call yourself an intern, or else a PGY-1, and you'd effectively be an R0.

 

Once you start your US Radiology residency, then you'd call yourself an R1 Radiology residency, even though this is your PGY-2 year. Confusing eh? It gets better.

 

In Canada, since the internship is bundled with the residency, if you were an intern in Canada, you'd call yourself either an intern, or a PGY-1, or an R1.

 

Once you start your Canadian Radiology residency, then you'd call yourself an R2 Radiology resident, and you'd be in your PGY-2 year.

 

As far as the discussion you guys were having, I thought that research years in surgery also counted towards your R designation, and that PGY and R are interchangeable. The reason being that I think your pay scale is tied to your seniority in residency, so it increases with each year. Anyway, the whole thing is basically semantics.

 

Ian

[Guest marbledust]

I thought that research years in surgery also counted towards your R designation, and that PGY and R are interchangeable. The reason being that I think your pay scale is tied to your seniority in residency, so it increases with each year. Anyway, the whole thing is basically semantics.

 

They count if a research year is included (mandatory in the program) - as in neurosurgery. You would move through the PGY/R designation sequentially.

 

However, if you are doing reserach "outside" the offical program then you stay at the same PGY level until you resume your program. So you can techincally be considered a PGY-3 or whatever for several years.

 

Do my explanations make sense? About the pay - my source says it is tied to your official PGY level. I don't know if that is the case for every program in every province.

 

In most cases there will be no difference between a person's PGY and R designation. It's them research types that make it confusing

[Guest Kirsteen]

Hey there,

 

So just to clarify, if you were to enter say, a cardiac surgery fellowship and part-way through you began a PhD as part of that fellowship, for example, in the surgeon-scientist program. How would those years of that PhD be considered (especially given that some residency Directors would wish you to complete these years of research)? Would your PG-X status increase?

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[Guest byjude]

Or what if your residency program requires you to complete a Master's but you opt to transfer to the PhD program instead?

[Guest marbledust]

What have I got myself into here? lol :rollin

 

If somebody else can offer a beter explanation, please jump in....

 

Kirsteen: Cardiac surgery is one of those tricky cases because a research year is manadatory. Assumming you are going straight through, doing 5 clinical years and 1 research year, you would move from PGY1-6 in each year of the program. But, let's say you decided to extend your research year into a 3 year PhD. This is techincally what your designation would be:

 

Year 1: surgery: PGY-1

Year 2: surgery: PGY-2

Year 3: surgery: PGY-3

Year 4: mandatory research year of program: PGY-4

Year 5: optional PhD research: PGY-4

Year 6: optional PhD research: PGY-4

Year 7: optional PhD research: PGY-4

Year 8: surgery: PGY-5

Year 9: surgery: PGY-6

 

In this case, the person may be a PGY-5 but is in the 8th year of residency. They are a R8 - keeping in mind that the "PGY" is what counts for administrative purposes.

 

To be complicated (and sadistic), you decide to do a 1 year fellowship in transplantation:

Year 10: fellowship: PGY-7

 

For the masters degree:

If you were in cardiac surgery and finished it in the PGY year allocated to research (or finished it without having to take an extra year out of your clinical training program) and you finished your cardiac surgery training program (and MSc) in the traditional 6 years then your PGY status follows the normal 1-6 pattern.

 

However: if you are in a 5 year radiology program that doesn't have a year dedicated to research, but plan to take an extra year to do a master's: then the same case described with the cardiac surgery resident would apply and you would be classified as a PGY-4 (or whatever) for 2 years - you stay at the same level you were at when you "interupted" your radiology program.

 

I don't think I have ever written so many run-on sentences

[Guest Kirsteen]

Hey there marbledust,

 

Gotcha. Thanks for taking the time to lay out all of that.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen