A day in the life?

[Guest will]

I once came across a personal website of

a McMaster med student who had put

up an example of a typical daily schedule for a

med student at Mac....

anyone know where that (or similar information) can be found?

 

also, as an aside, does anyone know the type of

people involved in the selection process (esp. the interview)?

Are they usually Doctors?

 

thx a million

will

[Guest gucio93]

Hi Will

One of the students in the med class of 2003 posted this link a while back (incidently she's another moderator on this forum. Here's the link again: webhome.idirect.com/~snider/

 

With respect to your second question, the interview is conducted by three people: a faculty member, a community member and a medical student. Their input is judged equallly. The group discussion is evaluated by a different team of three people (also faculty, community, student), the submissions were evaluated by yet another three people team. The final decision is made by the evaluation committee who goes through the entire application of each candidate (including reference letters) and makes a decision: accept, reject or maybe. At the end of the evaluation process if the class is not filled some of the "maybes" are added to the acceptance list and some of the "maybes" are placed on a waiting list.

[Guest Carolyn]

Thanks for getting that gucio - I couldn't find it on my computer! Hope it is helpful!

[Guest will]

Thanks a lot...very helpful information.

 

-will

[Guest macmed04]

In case you're interested in what I'm up to as we speak, my schedule for this week is:

 

Mon: Tutorial 8:30-11:30am, Small group session 1:30-3pm, Anatomy session (something extra set up by my group) 3-4pm

Tues: Hematology clinic (one time thing) 9am-12pm, Clinical skills 1-4pm

Wed: Ob/Gyn elective 9am-4:30pm (even got to deliver a baby while on call with my horizontal elective supervisor last Sunday!)

Thurs: Tutorial 8:30-11:30am, Cardiology elective 1-5pm

Fri: Large group session 8-9:45am; Clinico-pathological conference (two groups presenting two clinical problems and some pathology slides to the rest of the people in their subunit) 10:15-11:45am

 

Mac is really great for being able to do as much or as little as you want to do. If you've got a family, you can make time for them; if you haven't got a science background, you can make time to do more work if needed; if you love clinical stuff, you can squeeze in a few electives. I love it here, and can't imagine sitting through lectures and labs from 8am-4pm every day!

[Guest lolly]

Hi macmed04!

 

In the schedule that you posted, which sessions are optional and which are mandatory? In a given week, how many hours do you spend in mandatory sessions?

 

How did you get hooked up with your horizontal elective supervisor? Did you have to find a supervisor by yourself or does the Mac faculty help you out with that by providing you with a list of physicians who are willing to be supervisors?

 

Thanks for your help!

[Guest macmed04]

Hi Lolly,

 

Well, not too much is mandatory around here. Tutorial and Clinical skills definitely are. Other than that, it's pretty much up to you. The once-off Hematology clinic was "mandatory", but I don't think anyone would get in trouble who didn't sign up for it. I find things like that pretty fun - I got to feel two enormous spleens while I was there on Tuesday. I guess CPCs are mandatory (Friday morning) when your group is giving the presentation, since your group might not like you too much if you don't pull your weight!

That makes for a grand total of about 9h in mandatory sessions each week. I go to pretty much everything because I figure I shouldn't pay $13500 in tuition just to skip all the stuff they've planned for us!

Finding horizontal elective supervisors is something you do on your own. Mac gives you an electives booklet at the beginning of med school with information on all sorts of electives people can do, including names and contact numbers of doctors who are generally willing to take on elective students. They also set up our first unit Family Practice elective for us, though unfortunately with the huge class size this year, they weren't able to accomodate everyone right away.

I got hooked up with my ob/gyn supervisor by word of mouth. Another person in my class did an elective with him earlier this year and passed on his contact info when that elective was done. Second years can give you good ideas of who's approachable and fun to work with. I got my cardio elective by calling up one of the cardiologists who put on a small group session for us in Unit 2.

The other great thing here is the stack of binders in the electives office that contain years worth of student evaluations of horizontal and block elective experiences, so you can easily look up who has taken on people before and who was really excellent to have as a supervisor.

Hope that helps you out!

[Guest pumpkina88]

Just wondering what the schedules/hours are like during block electives and the clerkship...???

[Guest Carolyn]

It is very dependent on the rotation - If you are in Internal medicine, Surgery, Pediatrics and OB/Gyn you can expect to be on call every 4th night and with medicine and surgery it is rare to get any sleep on those nights. So those are tough rotations sleep wise but still fun. And much more doable than you would think. Family Medicine and Psychiatry seem to have a little more "normal" hours.

 

Electives are really dependent - some people take call when they are doing block electives and the hours really depend on what you are doing.

 

While it is a big change in your life once you hit clerkship - it is very doable and easy to maintain a normal life for the most part and clerkship is a lot of fun!