Guest Kirsteen Posted July 1, 2004 Report Share Posted July 1, 2004 Hi there, While flying about the country this past week I thought I'd bring along some literature re: choosing a career path in medicine. I've found a few resources to be fairly useful, but I found it especially refreshing to read the interviews conducted a wee while ago by UWO medical students of various Canadian physicians and surgeons in London. I think it could be useful to do something similar with the medical professionals in Calgary--if nothing else, it increases the sample size of opinions re: career paths, but also, provides a little more perspective for each path. Would any current Calgary medical students, or incoming students be interested in launching this wee project or discussing it a little further? I'm not sure how the UWO students went about it, but it could be interesting for us to construct a list of the residency directors in each major CaRMS field and arrange interviews with each. A short bank of questions could be shortlisted from the other career path resources out there and ideally, students interested in specific fields could sign up to interview directors in areas which closely match their areas of interest. The questions and responses could then be compiled into another document that could be used by and may be of interest to many medical students. What do you guys think? :rolleyes Cheers, Kirsteen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Heidio Posted July 1, 2004 Report Share Posted July 1, 2004 Hi Kirsteen, I think this sounds great. Let me know what I can do to help out. Where did you find the UWO guide? I wouldn't mind reading through it myself. Heidi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Kirsteen Posted July 1, 2004 Report Share Posted July 1, 2004 Hi there, I must have downloaded and printed off the UWO guide from the internet a while ago, presumably from a related UWO site. (If any UWO moderators are around and know what this document's about, it would be handy to post a link if it's still available.) I'd had it on my bookshelf for a while, and was hoping for a medical school acceptance so that I had some good reason to give it a full read. Cheers, Kirsteen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest katwoman2003 Posted July 1, 2004 Report Share Posted July 1, 2004 It sounds like a great idea Kirsteen. I wouldn't mind helping out since the info would be useful to me too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Kirsteen Posted July 1, 2004 Report Share Posted July 1, 2004 Hi there, Great to hear that there's some interest in this out there. I've sent a wee note out to the Admissions Office to see: 1) if this has ever been done before; 2) if it would be viable to go ahead with it this summer/fall. I'll let you know what I hear and we can take it from there. Hopefully some good things. Cheers, Kirsteen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Kirsteen Posted July 3, 2004 Report Share Posted July 3, 2004 Hi there, Well I've received some good response from Admissions, and it looks like this sort of initiative hasn't been conducted at U. Calgary before. Following in the footsteps of the good folks at UWO, we seem to have the go-ahead to do this at Calgary. I have been sent the names of a couple of faculty who may be instrumental in helping pull this together, so I'll give them a shout and then we can go from there. It's probably something that should be kicked off sometime in late August, early September, when we've all had a chance to settle in to the program a bit. Cheers, Kirsteen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest katwoman2003 Posted July 4, 2004 Report Share Posted July 4, 2004 Thanks Kirsteen for all the hardwork! It'll definitely be a great help to the rest of the class when we start deciding what areas to go into. Are we interviewing the program directors? Or are we hitting up the chief residents, fellows etc. too? K Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Kirsteen Posted July 4, 2004 Report Share Posted July 4, 2004 Hi there K, I think the Program Directors should definitely be on the list, but it's also a great idea to include some residents. I haven't seen folks do that before in any of the literature I've read on career paths. I'm sure we could snag some names to do so. Cheers, Kirsteen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Spicy Aam Posted July 5, 2004 Report Share Posted July 5, 2004 Hey everyone! I just got back from being out of town. This is a superb idea that has been brought up! I would be very interested in helping to make this happen. It would be very valuable to the students at the UofC especially since students here must make decisions quicker than at other schools. I would also like to read the UWO publication, if anyone has an address from which to access it. Otherwise, I may be photocopying it from you Kirsteen . How was the meeting this weekend? Unfortunately I was out of town, so couldn't meet ya'll. But, it will be soon enough. Spicy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Kirsteen Posted July 5, 2004 Report Share Posted July 5, 2004 Hi there Spicy, So you ARE coming to UofC. Good to hear. I don't think I have an electronic copy of the UWO document as I downloaded and printed it off well over a year ago, on an older computer, which I no longer own. Photocopying would be an option unless one of the UWO folks has the file on hand? (I don't have it here with me, so I can't tell you the title of the document.) Cheers, Kirsteen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Spicy Aam Posted July 5, 2004 Report Share Posted July 5, 2004 Hi Kirsteen, I am attending the UofC this fall. I finally made my decision. How about yourself? Any news from UBC? I read that you've found a place in downtown - Congratulations!! That sounds like a lovely location. I'm not familiar with grocery shopping in downtown, but hopefully you'll be able to catch the C-Train to wherever you need to go. It's too bad you couldn't stay for some hard-core Stampede partying. Congrats again on finding a place! Spicy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Kirsteen Posted July 5, 2004 Report Share Posted July 5, 2004 Hi there Spicy, Good to hear that you'll be in the class. Nope, no word from UBC on this end. Need groceries, so if you're around the area in the next few weeks and happen to spot any good shops-of-food, please let me know. Cheers, Kirsteen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest katwoman2003 Posted July 5, 2004 Report Share Posted July 5, 2004 Getting back on the subject of interviews with various physicians. I spoke with an acquaintence of mine who's a chief res in gen surg at U of C and he said that U of C usually has sessions for specialties to "sell" their programs. The gen surg director is usually quite accessible for interview or questions. So if you need help in contacting physicians for General Surgery my friend could definitely help out... K. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Kirsteen Posted July 5, 2004 Report Share Posted July 5, 2004 Hi there K, That's a great start--good job. The latest is that I've contacted (and am awaiting response from) two Undergraduate Medical Education folks recommended to me by Admissions. Admissions suggested I approach them with the idea since they also put together some CaRMS info, even though they haven't done something like this before. I'm sure your General Surgery Director buddy's name will appear on the list of folks whom we could interview. Cheers, Kirsteen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest katwoman2003 Posted July 5, 2004 Report Share Posted July 5, 2004 Yeah. From my friend's perspective, the surgery directors seem very accessible, so I think contacting them shouldn't be a problem. I do think that getting some perspectives from fellows/chief res could be useful because they would definitely have a different take on things sometime. Of course, it depends if they want to talk to us. Most of them are very approachable from my experience:D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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