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McGill vs. U of T


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If you go to either school, please answer the following questions:

 

1) What do you love most about the school/program? What is its biggest strength?

2) What do you hate most about the school/program (be honest- if you say everything is amazing and you would change nothing, you either have low standards or are lying. Every program can improve in some way)?

3) What kind of online resources are available? Are all classes recorded (if so, using audio or video?)? Are any textbooks made available online (I know Mac has online videos and online texts)?

4) Do students ever do "horizontal electives" during first and second year so they can get early clinical exposure (like at Mac and Ottawa)?

 

Okay- that's it! I would really appreciate any input I can get.

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1st year McGill student

 

1) I am one of those people that likes having lectures rather than just having small groups all day long and I feel that the biggest strength right now is having many quality professors that give us lectures. That, and having anatomy labs with actual cadavers.

2) More clinical exposure in first year.

3) All classes are recorded and most lab talks are also recorded. The online system (WebCT) is very good and constantly being updated.

4) I have never heard of such a term in my life, but other classmates may have.

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1st year McGill student

 

4) I have never heard of such a term in my life, but other classmates may have.

 

Short answer is "no". Neither does UofT as far as I know. Both are very lec / class heavy in the first year. Of course theres always the opportunity to shadow and clinical encounters and stuff but no "horizontal electives" as such.

 

One thing on the con side of McGill. If you like organization, knowing whats going on at all times, etc. McGill is not for you. :rolleyes:

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If you go to either school, please answer the following questions:

 

1) What do you love most about the school/program? What is its biggest strength?

 

The city. The weather. lots of clubs and elective opportunities -- i feel like the world is my oyster because being in t.o. and having all these teaching hospitals in my reach allows me to set up shadowing experiences during the school year and the summer. u of t has great financial aid, great lecturers, and a curriculum mixed with didactic teaching and pbls. also great extracurricular activities and clubs.

 

2) What do you hate most about the school/program (be honest- if you say everything is amazing and you would change nothing, you either have low standards or are lying. Every program can improve in some way)?

 

the huge class size, and the long day spent in the same class day in and out can make things seem a bit like highschool. also, it gets clique-y as people settle into their routine and stick with the same group of friends. gone are the days in UG when you were able to swithc from class to class, and meet new friends in each class.

 

not coming from a bio background can seem daunting because though med school is supposed to teach you everything, some courses aren't taught that well....or some world-class researchers aren't great lecturers. that's why god created google i guess. :)

 

some of our pbls can be better integrated into our week. and we can have more self-study time. it was a shock to my system not having time to myself (or as much free time as i did in undergrad. med school can be go go go!!)

 

3) What kind of online resources are available? Are all classes recorded (if so, using audio or video?)? Are any textbooks made available online (I know Mac has online videos and online texts)?

 

lectures are recorded. no tbs are online as far as i know...however cma.ca has great resources. i feel that having an online tb won't really help since we don't have time to read tbs. we're swamped with weekly note packages containing the lecture notes so all we have to do is sit back and annotate.

 

4) Do students ever do "horizontal electives" during first and second year so they can get early clinical exposure (like at Mac and Ottawa)?

 

first year has therapeutic communication, determinants of community health, art and science of clin medicine, and a pediatrics elective. second year has more horizontal electives from what i've heard. Tcomm allows first year med students to work with psychiatric patients each week! first med school that does this! but you must be selected via a lottery (it's an extracurricular activity). DOCH allows you to go into the community via placements that happen each wednesday. we learn about health care in canada in action, so to speak, by learning about CCAC, school health, health promotion etc etc through our placements at agencies. ASCM gives us early pt. exposure (both standardized and real patients!). And a pediatrics elective gives you a chance to explore peds by weekly shadowing (again selection via lottery system b/c of huge interest).

 

Okay- that's it! I would really appreciate any input I can get.

 

hope this helps.

 

 

EDIT!!: wait, OS you're already in med at U of T??? Then you know UT better than I do :P

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