past/current Nursing students at UofT

[Guest citrinez]

I am in search of some advice from any current nursing students at u of t, or nursing students at uoft that are now in meds. I'm currently about to enter third year at utsc in the life science program ( psych and health studies), but have recently started considering applying to the nursing program at st. george. I'm still very interested in meds, and definitely haven't given up on that goal, but have seriously started considering nursing for many reasons.

 

I'm basically just wondering:

1. how does the program works

2. if med schools consider courses during year 1 and year 2 as a "full course load"

3. how many courses are pass/fail, and how does this affect gpa for med schools

4. any other info, words of wisdom/ caution etc.

5. I know that in most cases med schools don't care what program a person takes, but are there any schools that don't favour nursing applicants?

 

Any info would be greatly appreciated.

[Guest NurseEpi]

Hi Citrinez,

 

I graduated from nursing at U of T in 1999 and belonged to the very first class to complete the new two-year 'second entry' program. Some things may certainly have changed since then, but I can give you a bit of a sense of how the program works etc.

 

Instead of taking 5 courses a semester, much of the work is done in blocks pertaining to certain age groups and populations. We started with a 3-week clinical course where we learned some basic skills such as taking vital signs, moving patients and calculating medication orders etc. Then we did a couple of weeks each in healthy children (basically observing kids in daycares) and well elderly (hanging out with seniors at Baycrest) in order to learn about development across the lifespan. If I can remember correctly, we then did 3-4 weeks of obstetrics and gynecology. I can't remember the exact order of the rest of the clinicals, but essentially we did 6 weeks of adult surgery and 6 weeks of pediatric medicine, then 8 weeks of community health, 4 weeks of psychiatry/mental health, 8 weeks of chronic diseases (I was at Sick Kids working with kids with cystic fibrosis), 8 weeks of critical care and then some electives. Your clinicals usually work out to about 3 days a week and the other 2 days you'll be in classes at the faculty learning about nursing theory, ethics, research and statistics, microbiology and nutrition.

 

I'm not sure if med schools count this as a full-year. On our transcripts, our 'blocks' are given weightings of anywhere from 12-credits (which is a typical semester course) to 48-credits, but in the end it only works out to about 8-8.5 course equivalents. This is a question I'm still trying to answer. None of the courses I took were considered pass/fail and we received grades for everthing. Even when you're in clinicals, you still have to submit papers and write exams etc.

 

The class was very small (only 15 people) when I was there because we were the charter class and I guess they wanted to get things right before taking in too many students. So we were quite lucky and really got to pick and chose our placements. Now the class is much bigger (over 100). My only word of advice would be to speak up and if you have an idea of the areas you would like to get experience in, let your profs know right away and try to get the placements you want. My interest was always in pediatrics and I managed to complete all but one of my placements at Sick Kids.

 

And I'm not sure about schools that don't favour nursing students. I think the most important thing would be to really think hard about why you would want medicine over nursing because in interviews, they'll certainly ask you that.

 

Sorry this has dragged on, but just wanted to give you an idea of the program..keep in mind this is based on my experience from seven years ago so some more current graduates/students might be able to give you more info.

 

Hope this helps a bit,

NurseEpi

[Guest citrinez]

Hi,

thanks so much for the reply. Does anyone else have any useful info?