Choosing your Base hospital for McGill Internal Med

[wassabi101]

Hi guys!

 

I've just matched to McGill Internal Medicine and have to choose my base hospital. It's between the Montreal General, the Royal Victoria hospital and the Jewish General Hospital.

 

I'm not too sure how much flexibility you get to do rotations outside your base hospital. Nor do I know much about what the advantages or disadvantages might be to chosing one site over the other.

 

Are there any McGill medical students or residents who could comment on these three different sites and what they might have experienced during internal med rotations? I'm particularly interested in working with immigrant/refugee and inner-city populations and am also interested in clinical research, ID/tropical disease and ICU. Great teaching and collegiality is also really important to me.

 

Thanks for your help,

 

wassabi

[garp]

Hi Wassabi,

 

Congrats on matching! Where did you do your undergrad medical degree? I am not sure how much insight I can offer only being a second year medical student, but there is a regular poster who is an PGY1 at the Jewish for internal and so hopefully he can offer further advice...from my limited experiences, I can tell you that the students at the MGH get a great deal of teaching and appear extremely happy...as well, the MGH is the trauma centre in the city and so if ICU is what you are interested in, then the MGH would also be ideal (not to mention the fact that it is also has the tropical disease centre--one of a few in the entire country)...however, I am not sure of its patient population with respect to refugees and immigrants--I think you would gain more exposure to that at the Jewish...hope that others have further insight or can correct me where I may not as well informed as those more senior...

 

good luck and let us know of your decision! :-)

 

-Garp

[Nima123]

Hi guys!

 

I've just matched to McGill Internal Medicine and have to choose my base hospital. It's between the Montreal General, the Royal Victoria hospital and the Jewish General Hospital.

 

I'm not too sure how much flexibility you get to do rotations outside your base hospital. Nor do I know much about what the advantages or disadvantages might be to chosing one site over the other.

 

Are there any McGill medical students or residents who could comment on these three different sites and what they might have experienced during internal med rotations? I'm particularly interested in working with immigrant/refugee and inner-city populations and am also interested in clinical research, ID/tropical disease and ICU. Great teaching and collegiality is also really important to me.

 

Thanks for your help,

 

wassabi

 

I am not a medical student (yet!), but based on my volunteering experience, I can tell you MGH is a great place.

[Dr Medicator]

As the aforemention regular poster....

 

I would strongly suggest the JGH based on what your stated interests are in your original post. When it comes to immigrant and refugee health we have a large contingent of patients who fit this profile, we run one of the largest TB clinics in the city, we see malaria and other tropical diseases on a regular basis (even though the tropical medicine department is at the MGH, with Dr. maclean who is damn cool). We have an expert in international health (and the new director of the mcgill department for this topic) on staff in the ID department and one of our other ID attendings recently published on vaccination rates amongst the immigrant population in montreal in the annals of internal medicine... so we got that part covered.

 

As I mentioned when I gave the tours of our site for CaRMS, we have a high rate of weird and wonderful diseases at our site, far more so than the other centres. Our population is older, with more comorbidities and a number of wonderous ethical issues abound. We do work harder and longer hours than the other sites and those residents do acknowledge it.

 

Personally though, our training is unparalled... choose the JGH.

 

Medicator

[garp]

Was waiting for your reply Medicator--I didnt know if you would have time between call to post a response :-) How's residency treating you so far?

[wassabi101]

Thanks everyone (and medicator) for your responses! I unfortunately missed out on the tour of the JGH, and I assumed there would have been more ID and of an immigrant/refugee population at the MGH, so it was good to hear otherwise.

 

If I don't end up at the JGH, is there the possibility of doing select rotations there? And if so, would you recommend any in particular, such as ID?

 

wassabi

[master_splinter]

Conventional thinking is that the MGH has the best service:education ratio; in general, it seems to be the IM site that's perceived as most desirable. The JGH is thought to be most service-heavy, but as mentioned, it is likely better for the expsoure to refugee and immigrant populations that you're looking for.

[MedPen]

I've worked at the MGH, the RVH, and the JGH, and in my honest opinion, as far as educating their staff, fostering a community spirit and in terms of facilities, the JGH winhs hands down.

 

Not to mention that their orthopedics and cardiothoracic surgery are top of the line and that they have acquired a surgery robot.

[Dr Medicator]

1) yeah there is time every now and then to read and respond to posts between calls..... not much time, but its there

 

2) yes you can do electives at any base hospital, in just about anything you want.

 

3) shame on you for missing my stellar tour of the JGH... it is legendary

 

4) Yeah the JGH basically rocks on all accounts, and clearly is an unbiased opinion.

 

5) that is all, back to work

 

Cheers,

 

Medicator