are these years important in terms of residency placements?

[Guest monkey]

Hey,

 

i just wanted to know how important the first two years of medschool are in terms helping/lessening your chances of getting into residency of your choice? Since its all pass/fail/honours system, CaRMS isnt told our exact percentages.....or are theY? i figured they wouldnt be told...and if they are not, then does this mean all of 3rd year grades and remarks are weighted heavily!?

 

Thanks guys!

[Guest Ian Wong]

Not really. Although for the really tough specialties, the better you are the better. For the vast majority of specialties it doesn't matter. But you'll carry a lot of those clinical skills and work ethic into third and fourth year, where your performance really counts.

 

Ian

UBC, Med 3

[Guest 007]

Does it matter for residency placements whether the program you're in is H/P/F or just P/F?

[Guest cheech10]

How could it? You have no control over your school's grading system. This is yet another reason why grades are not terribly important (compared to clerkship evaluations, reference letters, and your CV).

[Guest UWOMED2005]

There's a large deal of inconsistency in how Canada's med schools evaluate their students - some P/F, some H/P/F, some mixed and some other (or so I believe.) Can you imagine comparing a student from Calgary (entirely P/F I believe) vs. UWO (mixed between the years, entirely P/F as of the class of 2008) and U of T (still all H/P/F I believe)? As a result marks are often a useless indicator for performance when evaluating med students, and programs rate them accordingly. For example, according to the program director at an infor session last year, UWO's emerg program counts marks as only 10% of their pre-interview rating scale. Not only that, but you get 8/10 for just passing all your courses! In fact, they only give 9/10 "if you have a PhD or something." In other words, honours helps you ZILCH for this program. I know UWO's internal medicine program is similar, and I know someone who matched to U of T General Surgery who said marks don't have a great impact there.

 

There's also some question as to how your 1st and 2nd year marks relate to clinical performance. At UWO, we've had two separate high-ranking administrators/deans suggest there's almost a NEGATIVE correlation between H/P/F in 1st and 2nd year and performance in clerkship. That is to say when you lined up the students with mostly Hs in 1st and 2nd year with those with mainly Hs in 3rd and 4th year, quite surprisingly there wasn't a whole lot of overlap. That's not to say people who do well in 1st and 2nd year won't do well in 3rd and 4th year - I know many classmates who were "superstars" in 1st and 2nd year and are still performing like "superstars" (I hate that term, btw, as it breeds arrogance) in clerkship - but doing well in 1st and 2nd year does not guarantee success in 3rd and 4th year, and vice-versa.

 

The caveat is, however, that there are something like 250-300 individual residency programs (13 schools times roughly 20 programs each - VERY ROUGH estimate) in Canada. And each is allowed to set its own criteria for applicant selection. So the question "What is important to get a good residency" is a VERY, VERY TRICKY one and depends a great deal on what program you are aiming for. Essentially, you have to ask the individual programs (or better yet, their RESIDENTS) what's important.

 

On the whole though, marks aren't a very useful measure for evaluating med students, hence the move by many schools to go P/F as it doesn't seem to matter and is thought to decrease the competitive atmosphere.

[Guest McMastergirl]

So, if you are still out there and wanting your question answered, are you confused yet? So ARE these pre-clinical years important or aren't they?

 

Of course they are. Just don't think of it in terms of marks. Think of it as a time to learn, explore future career possibilities, etc.

 

My opinion is, the most important thing for getting in a residency program is IF THEY LIKE YOU. Therefore, you have to do at least one elective there and click with everyone. A lot of pressure, to be sure. But who knows, maybe you won't like them.

 

So, plan and arrange your electives EARLY and try to spend 4 weeks if you can!

[Guest CaesarCornelius]

How early should you arrange your electives?

 

 

CC

[Guest cracked30]

As a resident.

Yes they are important.

[Guest UWOMED2005]

I think Mac is a bit different from the other schools in that you do your traditional 4 week clerkship electives early and they are integrated throughout. Correct me if I'm wrong - we don't work that way at all.

 

For UWO, we do our formal electives after clerkship in 4th year, sept through december. When to book them depends somewhat on what you are looking to do. . . if you're trying to book an elective in ENT, ophtho, plastics etc then the rule for us is to try to get them booked NOW (ie Oct-Nov-Dec 3rd year), about one year before you're going to be doing them. But there are numerous stories of people having changes in heart in terms of career choice, and booking less competitive electives in the July and August of 3rd year (ie only a month or two before they begin.)

 

Don't worry at all about booking 4th year electives if you're in 1st year and your school (ie UWO) doesn't have them scheduled until 4th year.

[Guest bruhaha]

Hey UWOMEDS, you qouted a bunch of information regarding residency admission criteria. Where might I find similiar data?

 

Thanks,

 

bru

[Guest aneliz]

Contact the program director... that is where UWOMeds info came from... a presentation by the program director to the UWO med students.

[Guest UWOMED2005]

Yeah, most of the stuff I said was obtained via word-of-mouth from residents or faculty in specific departments. There isn't any centralized source of written information (ie a website) listing criteria for programs.

 

The one key thing to remember when it comes to residency programs is that each program is free to set it's own admissions criteria and there's something around ?250? different residency programs across Canada. So "what's important" changes greatly depending on WHAT you are applying to AND WHERE you're applying.

 

Yeah, it's pretty confusing.

[Guest frogcanada]

Does anyone have a straight answer to this question.

 

I was told that for competitive fields, it was recommended that you release your marks (assuming they are high) in the application to be 'competitive' for their program. Doesn't this kind of negate one of the purposes of the P/F system?

 

Can you choose to release marks to CARMS/residency programs that you are applying to if it is a competitive field? If you don't release marks, do you risk residency program committees not taking your application seriously?

 

FC

[Guest cutieyellow]

I always wonder what happens to people like me, who has grades and GPAs and who will apply to CaRMS (well, as well as my own Quebec system)... What happens to my grades? People never really say much here in QcCity.

 

CY

[Guest Ian Wong]

Floating to the top...

 

Ian