Med School and Residency in Same City?

[ontariostudent]

If you knew where you wanted to do residency, would it be advantageous or disadvantageous to do med school in the same place?

 

In my mind, if you do med school where you want to do residency you'll have many years to network and get to know the right people, but if you go to med school in a different city or province you'll have more diverse experience to bring to your residency (and you can always use electives to network wherever you want to do residency).

 

This is a bit of a personal question because I got into McGill as an OOP but I probably want to do residency in Toronto. McGill has what I consider to be a better curriculum (personal opinion because I like the block organization) during preclerkship and they say that med students in Montreal get more responsibility than their counterparts in Toronto (I've heard this from a few people, including someone who did med school at McGill and residency at U of T). However, I have zero plans to practice in Quebec and don't want to jeopardize my ability to match into what I want to do back in Toronto.

 

Obviously both are academically great schools and produce great doctors, but I think I might enjoy McGill more (though I'm not thrilled about the prospect of moving away from my family). At the end of the day, though, I think I'd be happy in either place, so if networking is really a big deal I would rather stay here in Toronto. Obviously if I plan to do something like family medicine it won't much matter.

 

I guess something else potentially relevant to residency is that McGill isn't pass/fail in clerkship and U of T is. Not sure how this factors in at all.

 

And, obviously, until May 15 this discussion is all hypothetical : ).

 

One more thing- obviously there are a lot more factors weighing into my decision, but they are all personal. This, however, is something I really don't know the answer to.

[Lactic Folly]

Most important thing to matching in a particular location is the strength of your candidacy (i.e. do they like you).. not sure that diversity of experience from attending a different school is in itself given much weight (perhaps in emphasizing how much you wish to come home after having moved away?). The corollary is that if you are not as strong a candidate, having attended the same medical school is no guarantee of a residency position there.

 

A practical point is that it would be more convenient and cost-effective to network at your own school, especially if you are not sure what field of medicine you are aiming for at this point. You would need to be more proactive and plan further in advance in order to set up shadowing, research, electives etc. at another school, even if it is home for you.

[ontariostudent]

A practical point is that it would be more convenient and cost-effective to network at your own school, especially if you are not sure what field of medicine you are aiming for at this point. You would need to be more proactive and plan further in advance in order to set up shadowing, research, electives etc. at another school, even if it is home for you.

 

That's sort of along the lines of what I was thinking, since I really don't know what specialty I want to do. Thanks for the input.

[mbene085]

Keep in mind that different schools have different strengths in terms of residency programs. Depending on what specialty you're attracted to, there can be other schools that you'll rank higher than U of T and McGill. Whichever school you go to, you can still get strong clerkship/elective reviews in your desired specialty, and do electives with the programs that are on top of your list.

[Smurfette]

There aren't really any guarantees in life... No matter where you do your med school, you could end up in any city for residency depending on what happens with carms. However, students tend to have an minutely better easier time getting into their home school for residency just because it's easier to get to know the people at your home school.

[ontariostudent]

Thanks! I've already decided to stay in Toronto, partly for that reason.