Match list @ Calgary

[Jixe]

Hi,

 

I was wondering if anyone had any information on Calgary's match list on CaRMS for the past 3 years.

 

Thanks!

[Kirsteen]

Hi,

 

I was wondering if anyone had any information on Calgary's match list on CaRMS for the past 3 years.

 

Thanks!

Hi there,

 

What sort of information, outside of that provided by CaRMS, are you looking for? We are given a couple of lectures by our Undergrad Med. Ed. Office which provides match information, but I don't believe the information is for public distribution.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[Jixe]

Hi there,

 

What sort of information, outside of that provided by CaRMS, are you looking for? We are given a couple of lectures by our Undergrad Med. Ed. Office which provides match information, but I don't believe the information is for public distribution.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

 

Kirsteen,

 

Sorry for the delayed reply. I was wondering if students were allowed to disclose their class match list.

 

Thanks!

[Kirsteen]

Kirsteen,

 

Sorry for the delayed reply. I was wondering if students were allowed to disclose their class match list.

 

Thanks!

Hi there,

 

Considering we're not given an official document with that information, it could be a little difficult. Suffice to say, we did very well this year. Only 2 of our students (less than 2%) didn't match in the first round this year. We had a number of folks match to competitive residencies, e.g., 2 went to Plastics, 3 to Rads, 1 to Uro, a schwak to Obs/Gyn, another schwak to Ortho. No-one ranked ENT and only one person ranked Ophtho.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[LightsEternity]

What I found interesting was that Calgary's CaRMs matching was about 99%; whereas Queen's CaRMs matching was around 70-80% (I can't remember the number) but I remember it being significantly lower. Is this b/c most Calgary students attempt to match within the province where they only have to compete against students from U. Calgary/Alberta (primarily)?

[Kirsteen]

Hi there,

 

There was recently a thread re: factors surrounding the match, but I don't have much time to find it at the moment. Suffice to say there are a myriad factors involved in the CaRMS selection process and how well a school's class does from year to year.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[Kirsteen]

I don't know the specifics of this year's match, but it could be that more U of C grads matched because they chose less competitive specialties, or applied across the country. Schools with lower match rates may have more applicants making "high risk" choices - competitive specialties without backups, couples match, only ranking a few locations, etc.

Hey there,

 

That's one hypothesis, but it seemed that quite a few of our grads applied (and matched to) fairly competitive specialties. That being said though, as far as I'm aware, many folks did apply cross-country within their specialty of choice. Specifically, there were a schwak who matched to Anes, another big lot to Obs/Gyn (which, by all accounts, was completely mad in terms of application numbers this year) 2 who matched to Plastics, at least 5 who matched to Ortho and another 5-7 who matched to Gen Surg (the latter which, again, was supposed to be insane this year). A whole lot who matched to Internal and 3 who matched to Rads (yet another two specialties whose numbers skyrocketed this year). We did have some folks who matched to Family this year, but it didn't seem like the majority, and even then, the Family programs to where they matched were among the most coveted in the country. Overall, our class did very well this year.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[UoC-CCFP-07]

I went to Western for med school. I've been a resident for 2 years and had the chance to talk to ex-med students from across the country. I also paid a lot of attention to the matches while I was in med school, from 2001-2005.

 

With one to two caveats (see next paragraph,) there is little correlation between medical school attended and success in the CaRMS match. I've seen people from everywhere match to everything and back again. I've seen schools have no unmatched people one year and 12 unmatched the next (the exception seems to be UWO, which very oddly always seems to unmatch 6-7 people every year - meaning they ALWAYS perform in the middle of the pack for the match.) Most schools have had both good and bad matches while I've been around. And you can never tell how aggressive any one class from a particular school was in the match. . . ie if 12 people went unmatched was that because 25 people from that class only ranked Dermatology as a specialty?

 

The first caveat is that I have seen a trend for the uber-competitive specialties (ie plastics, ophthalmology, Emerg, ENT, Urology) to have a slight preference for selecting students from that site (ie UWO plastics usually took at least one plastics resident from the UWO med students, and the other would go to UWO or somewhere else.) This makes sense as UWO students had 4 years to get to know the UWO plastics staff. As well, theoretically the UWO med student is more of a known quantity. Of course, I had tons of classmates who matched to competitive residencies outside UWO. . . but it was often less predictable where they matched.

 

This MIGHT be a consideration when selecting medical school. If you absolutely hate the city of Toronto and desperately want to be in Calgary for residency or long term, and know that you are 100% going to be shooting for a competitive program (ie plastics, derm, etc) it might not be a good idea to go to Toronto for medical school. . . as you might end up there 9-10 years, rather than just 4.

 

The second caveat is that not all programs are offered at all sites. If you are pretty sure you're going to want to be dermatologist, there is a THEORETICAL benefit to being at a school with a dermatology program, so you can work with the academic dermatologists. This caveat is even weaker than the one above as I've known at least a few UWO grads to match to derm (there's no derm program at UWO) and even more so because we matched tons of people to physiatry in 2002 and 2005 (more than any other school in the country), and yet didn't have a physiatry program until after the 2005 match. Go figure.

 

Success in the match isn't a great criteria to pick medical schools on.