Taking an extra year?

[ouchitburns]

I have some ideas but, essentially, I have no idea what I want to specialise in. So the 3 years for Calgary is a tad scary, though in most other respects I really, really like calgary (people, teaching style, 24 hour anatomy lab(!)).

 

I read in another post that some students take an extra year to do clerkships before matching if they were undecided.

 

Does this actually happen? Can anyone tell me what it entails?

 

Thanks.

[Nephets]

Adding a year is not common and it is very difficult to do. Most people figure out what they want to do without trouble. Once you find it...it will just click. Nothing helps more than a deadline. Now that I'm in my final year, the thought of having to do a fourth year makes me want to vomit. 3 years is more than enough...clerkship is fun but an extra year would be too much.

[Who M.D.]

I don't think anyone took an extra year in this year's graduating class. I've never heard of people taking an extra year. If some people do, it must be exceedingly rare.

 

Don't worry about what you'll want to specialize in. No one seems to find it that difficult a choice in their third year. Remember also that for many specialties, you start in the same residency (e.g. cardiology, respirology, endocrinology, nephrology, hematology, rhumatology, and several others begin as internal medicine residents). So you may not even need to pick a specialty by third year—just a general area.

[Nephets]

There was actually 1 Tuatara who added a year to their program but it was for exceptional circumstances (not because they didn't know what to do their residency in).

[p0tus]

Hey!

 

I think the key to deciding what your future specialty early should be to do as much shadowing as you can during the pre-clinical years. And I don't mean just an hour or two, but try to get in atleast half a day with a doc. So check out docs doing general/cardiac surgery, obs/gyn, pediatrics, pathology/radiology, internal medicine etc (basically all the major groups of specialties) Most doctors at Foothills are friendly and more than welcoming to have med students follow them around. You can also check out books on the different specialties (I think Lange's the ultimate guide to choosing a medical specialty is a good one).

 

Bottom line is you need to arrange 6 weeks out of 10 of your electives before you even begin clerkship, so it does help to have a rough idea of what you want to do by the time your done pre-clinicals. That said, most people find their way in the end