Week In the Country

[vince99]

Anyone know any additional details?

 

Re: Week in the Country

 

The 'Week in the Country' experience is mandatory for all first year medical students.

 

The next 'Week in the Country' experience is scheduled for Tuesday, May 22nd to Saturday, May 26th, 2007.

 

Preceptors are arranged through Ms. Sandra Whan, Assistant Director of ERMEP. Please refer to the Student Guide for more information.

[heathcliff]

Are you an applicant or in your first year at Queen's Meds?

[sensfan]

i'm assuming applicant cause the first year class had to sign up for it a month ago and we've mostly been assigned our placements. week in the country is basically a 4 day thing where you go and follow a family doctor in a "rural" area. i put rural in quotations cause some of the communities we get to choose from are pretty big (ex. barrie, cambridge, etc). it takes place after our end of term exams in may. there are 2 organizations that we could have applied to - ERMEP & ROMP. it's mandatory, so everyone gets a placement. you also get to rank your top choices, so you don't end up going somewhere totally random. as for the programs, you can find more info at:

 

http://www.ermep.com/

http://www.romponline.com/

 

but this is not something you need to worry about until next winter if you get in......

[Dingalongdong]

To add onto what sf has already written.

 

Feedback from the upper years who did rural week last year is very positive. It is a chance to use all those clinical skills you will be learning next year. Students found their host communities to be very welcoming. Some actually do a rural month in the place of the rural week (through ROMP). The criticism is that by the end of the first week, you're finally just getting things figured out; there's a diminished chance to get a good feel of what rural practise is like.

 

I'm opting to do the 1 week rural followed by an elective of 1 mo of observerships in 4 different disciplines. I still have no idea what I want to do after med school and I hope that the 1 mo elective will help filter out some possibilities.

[vince99]

Yeah I'm a prospective MD student. I have an interview at Queen's this weekend.

I'm interested in Rural Medicine, and this kind of program is definatly something that I'm interested in.

[The_B]

I'd also add that you don't need to go thru ERMEP or ROMP (essentially south eastern and central ontario). You can sign up to go to any rural community if you can get approval, but it may not be funded (so if your home community is say, Wawa ON, you can go home for a week and practice your skills.)

[brownie99]

And to add some more - you don't need to keep it at a week either. Myself and another classmate are going to Sioux Lookout for a month and having that count as our 'week in the country'.

Most people who have already done the WITC agree that it's a great learning experience, even if you aren't interested in rural medicine. It's nice to get to a place where there aren't a million-and-one medical students competing for the same chance to learn.

Also, some other medical schools also have WITC, and more of them are leaning towards also making it mandatory, which I personally hope they do 'cause its a great opportunity!