Advice for choosing between Queen's and Western

[Guest kaisermark]

Hey all,

 

I posted this earlier and had a few responses, but it got wiped out entirely by the problems with ezboard. Okay, I'm trying to choose between Western and Queen's, but they're so similar it's very difficult. How would you guys compare them (programs especially), and what would you pick?

 

Thanks so much!

[Guest TimmyMax]

Hey!

 

Choose Western! That was easy...:lol

I'm joking, but I will try to remember my long reply from before and post it sometime tomorrow- stay tuned!

In the meantime, anyone else want to go to bat for our fair school???

 

Best of luck!

Timmy

[Guest kaisermark]

Hey TimmyMax,

 

Have you thought of your old long repsonse yet? It's a really tough choice, they're so similar. Let me know whenever you get the chance, please. And for others out there, care to give your two cents?

[Guest TimmyMax]

Hey kaiser,

 

I've got a half-day tomorrow, so I'll type something out then. I'm kind of disappointed that no one else has stepped up to the plate, but maybe they have and their post disappeared. I'm kind of miffed that my old post was lost, because it wqas pretty good, I thought!

 

BEst of luck!

Timmy

[Guest antissa]

Hey,

 

I had the exact same choice when I was applying, but I chose UWO. I based this on more of a gut call than anything, but to be perfectly honest, I chose UWO because the people there were nicer than the people at Queen's. When I went for each school's respective interview weekend, both school's students were happy and eager to promote their school, but I got the feeling that the UWO students genuinely wanted you to get in and come to UWO while the Queen's students seemed less genuine to me and were only there because it was the "proper" thing to do. Now this may not have been your experience, but it was the current medical students at UWO that sold me on the school- people like UWOMED2005, therealcrackers and that crowd that vaulted UWO to the top of my list. There were other reasons why I chose UWO (see below), but the people there were what sold it for me- you can get a good medical education anywhere in Canada, but I wanted to go someplace where I would fit in and be happy- I have not regretted my choice for a nanosecond!

Other reasons why I chose UWO- didn't like the Queen's semestered curriculum (too much to study at once!); preferred Western's systems-based approach to teaching medicine (having two cracks at the can is a lot better than learning something once and having the rest of pre-clerkship to forget it!); Kingston is smaller than London- all the best cases get sent to Ottawa or Toronto while London is THE centre for SW Ontario, a catchment area of a good million people, so lots to be seen here; UWO had a happy, unified medical student body while Queen's seemed happy as well, but a bit cliquey and snooty for my liking (not as bad as the undergrads at either school, but still a detectable vibe); both schools are beautiful, so nothing to choose there aside from the fact that I had already gone to Queen's for one year of undergrad and hated it there; the rural component at UWO offered AWESOME learning opportunities and freedom (what's the deal with people not liking the mandatory rural component- rural placements are FAR superior to city placements for learning and actually getting to DO something as opposed to watching it); UWO's curriculum is set up such that you have finished all of your clerkship and electives before the CaRMS match so you'll have a better idea of what you would like to do for the rest of your life and be able to customize your electives to give you an optimal chance of matching to said field instead of doing alll of your electives at the beginning of your clerkship when you have no idea what you'd like to do other than what you THINK you would like to do (and trust me, what you end up doing is rarely what you initially think that you will end up doing at the beginning of clerkship); I felt that UWO matches better than Queen's overall; and, the clerkship at UWO was simply superior- 'nuff said!

So there are a few of the reasons I chose UWO for medicine over Queen's. There were other factors playing into my decision as well (ie: better music program at UWO than Queen's, a bigger intramural program, the chance to play on the UWO Meds Flatliners ice hockey team and of course, the chance to drink with UWOMED2005 on a weekly basis), but those were some of the major academic reasons why UWO was (and still is) the best fit for me. Hope it helps!

[Guest TimmyMax]

Hey antissa,

 

Good call! As I started to read this post, I began thinking "Wow, this sounds almost exactly how I came about making my mind up between Queen's and Western- hey, wait a minute- it's my old post!". Cool, eh?

Thanks for saving me some time. Hope this helps!

 

Best of luck!

Timmy

[Guest queenslatifah]

Hi There:

I think you read my earlier post before the board broke down, but I just thought I'd chime in again. My (biased) vote is strongly in favour of Queen's. Both schools have benefits and drawbacks, but they aren't actually that similar. Keep in mind that Western required the rural component (blech!) and that London can be very isolating (I did my masters at UWO). I can also speak very highly of the meds faculty at Queen's--and the class is traditionally very close-knit. Queen's is an excellent place to study and live for a few years. Again, my opinion is somewhat biased, but I get a very general impression that the Queen's meds program is held in very high regard... I would wager that it's a nose ahead of UWO. Good luck with the decision, but again, I hope to see you in Kingston in September.

[Guest Scared in the Woods]

I also feel kind of biased towards Queen's. I took a few classes there and spent a lot of time on campus. A lot of small pubs, cafes and shops that were a lot of fun to hang out in. I was surprised to hear anyone suggest that Queen's was snobby. I suppose it entirely depends on who you run into, but what surprised me was how laid back and friendly the medical students as a whole were. Of course, London is a great city too, and I'm sure you'll find good people and places in either city.

[Guest Gill0927]

Hi,

 

I felt compelled to write (and not just to express another voice from the UWO side!) .

 

I chose UWO for lots of reasons and have absolutely no regrets. I don't feel London is isolated at all (and I'm not from southwestern ON - I'd actually never been to London before my interview). I really like London, actually. That's part of what played into my decision...I really do like London better than Kingston (yeah, we're all biased one way or another I guess, but I do!).

 

One of the main reasons I chose UWO was because I"d heard such fantastic things about the clerkship program here. Also, with respect to Queens, I really wanted to start clerkship as early in med school as possible and UWO starts earlier than Queens (by a not insignificant margin, I think). A lot of the other reasons I chose it are echoed in Timmy's post...friendliness at interview, etc...UWO just seemed like a good fit for me.

 

The main reason I really felt compelled to write at this point was to respond to the "UWO mandatory rural component - blech!" remark. I have to admit, when I chose UWO, I wasn't a big fan of the idea of a mandatory rural component, but I figured it wouldn't really affect my med school experience if I really didn't want it to (which I still believe is true). But I'm SOOOO glad for it now. We just finished first year, with our mandatory discovery week at the end of it (the first part of the mandatory rural component) and it was amazing...definitely the best part of the year. More than that, it really made me WANT more rural experience in my med school experience...it really seems like there's so much opportunity to learn in that environment and that it's a great place to be at this stage, at least...maybe in the future also (and that's besides the fact that everyone that you meet is just so happy that you're there and wines and dines you and stuff...that's just perks). Anyway, if the week hadn't been mandatory, chances are I wouldn't have done it (before now I'd never for a second thought I'd want to do ANYTHING rural) and I would've really missed out on lots of options and opportunities to come.

 

Just my two cents...

 

Gill

[Guest queenslatifah]

It's all good, sister-friend:

 

Maybe the "blech" comment was too much... but hey, I've been a bit touchy since Michael's been on trial. Nevertheless... let me throw out a few more thoughts:

 

1) To clarify, rural opportunities are definitely available at Queen's if you want to pursue them, but it's NOT mandatory. In my view, it's nice to have a choice... who knows what you'll end up being drawn to... the rural gig works for some and no others.

 

2) Queen's has a great rotating observership program (summer after 1st year) - you get to spin through different areas of your choice for 4-6 weeks... it really is excellent.

 

3) Mentor group program - you are placed in a small group (around 10-12 people) made up of students from all years, plus 1 or 2 profs, for social and/or other events of your choosing (ie. dinner out, rock climbing, bowling, curling - whatever your group decides to do) Some mentors invite the group to their home for dinners. You can request that your mentor be in a specialty of your choice. (this is a great way to build a great relationship with some contacts that you'll have for years)

 

4) And if you're really longing for some of the sorority/fraternity culture that's so prevalent on the Western (undergrad) scene, you can always get into Meds House. You can live 5 minutes away from campus with other med students for really cheap rent and have your meals prepared for you, or be an out-of-house member (and get prepared lunches). Meds House is famous for their beginning of the year party/Halloween'en Party/Interview Weekend Party, as well as their other social events... it's a good way to mix with other years, and also lots of Queen's profs are Meds House Alumni who attend events as well (speaking of parties, if you're lucky, maybe queenslatifah can teach you the Hustle?).

 

5) Clerkship.... yeah, yeah, clerkship does start a tad later at Queens than other schools (Jan of 3rd year at Queen's, vs September of 3rd year at other schools) but it does NOT hurt Queen's in the CaRMS match at all... none... that's zero, nada... like a great big dough-nut. And remember, since you go on elective in Feb of 3rd year (after only 4-6 weeks of core clerkship), there's less pressure on you during electives and they don't expect much from you since you're in clerkship -- for example, when a prof asks for something you can just say "Hey, listen Brotha' from anotha Motha, I just started clerkship, so why don't you chill... you'll get it when you get it"

 

And in fact, most Queen's clerks ARE well prepared to impress during electives because of Queen's extremely strong Clinical Skills program (which you start during first year, seeing real patients). Note that I said impressed because of your skills, not necessarily appearance... a few Queen's folks could use some of Western's fashion savvy... but that's another story.

 

So... I respectfully withdraw my "blech" comment... but offer the above for your consideration.

 

p.s. Michael's been framed.

[Guest TimmyMax]

Hey,

 

Just to chime in in support of the "rural" (blech- not!) component of Western's program, aside from getting great opportunities that you otherwise wouldn't get in London, there is also the possibility of spending time at the "satellite campus" in Windor, I mean Windsor. There you get some pretty awesome opportunities (chance to do things normally reserved for residents back in the L-dot) and the rotations there are at least as good, in some cases better than the ones in London! I did surgery, obs and paeds in Windor and they were all great rotations, especially the latter two!

On Obs, I delivered a pile of babies (3-6x what people in London generally delivered on their Obs rotations, and no, placentas don't count in that figure either!), including one where the obstetrician didn't make it on time (woo!) and basically had the run of the place while I was there- all the consultants were so happy to have you and eager to teach (and brag to their London counterparts how many deliveries that their clerks got to do) which made for an optimal learning experience! Plus there was the opportunity to customize your experience since things were so self-directed- want to take extra ER call? Go for it! Don't like delivering babies? Spend extra time in the fertility clinic! It was that easy to set things up there!

Paeds was probably the strongest rotation down in Windor. The coordinator, Dr. Awuku, recently won a national clinical teaching award and he is just fantastic to work with! You can have as much (or as little) responsibility as you like and can basically function as a resident while you are there, with all the autonomy and involvement that comes along with it. For one weekend, I was on call for all of Essex county, which included both of the Windor ERs, Leamington ER and all the straight-from-the-doc's office admissions for three crazy nights. I've never slept that little in my life, but hell, it was worth it! I learned so much over that weekend and it was probably the best couple of days in my entire clerkship! By the end of that weekend, I really didn't need my consultants anymore, other than to run by them what I was going to do as a formality. What fun!

From what I've heard, other people have had similar great experiences at the other regional sites (ie: Chatham, Stratford, St. Thomas) on their respective rotations, so my experience is by no means unique. And I haven't even talked about rural Family Medicine, where you can pretty much choose where you want to go (within reason, of course, you can't go to Toronto, for example!) in "rural" Ontario. (The reason for the "rural" is that you'll come to realize that it is a very relative term, meaning basically anywhere >80 km outside of a centre with >50,000 people, so you can customize your experience accordingly!)

So yeah, I just thought that I'd pipe in and mention that rural medicine is hardly 'blech'. I'd say that it is quite the opposite! But don't take my word for it- choose UWO and find out for yourself!

 

Best of luck!

Timmy

[Guest michca]

In terms of a rural component- I think it's fair to say that both Western and Queen's have extremely good opportunities to partake in rural medicine- I don't think it's necessarily the best factor to use to differentiate the two programs.

 

OK..so I have copied this message below from the Queen's forum as I don't think it is getting much traffic these days:

 

Hi Kaiser,

I thought I would dig up an old thread for you on this topic for you since no one from Queen's has responded as yet

 

pub125.ezboard.com/fpreme...=269.topic

 

You may also want to take a look at the What's Up Doc booklet Queen's puts out annually-it's packed with info! Here's a link to it:

 

meds.queensu.ca/undergrad..._s_up_doc_

 

If I had the choice- things I would be considering would include, in no particular order:

 

1. Location- do you have a preference for Kingston versus London? Proximity to larger centres- Toronto Ottawa and Montreal? Smaller city vs. medium sized city?

 

2. People- how friendly/relaxed/inviting did the med school students/staff seem to you? Where do you feel you would most fit in?

 

3.Clerkship Issues- being first call, versus not being first call.

 

4. Curriculum set up-I don't know too many details re. Queen's curriculum- hopefully the links above will provide you with more info.

 

5. Good old gut feeling as to which one might be better for you!

 

Good luck with your decision!

[Guest JSS02]

I preferred Western over Queen's because of the curriculum, location (liked London better than Kingston), and the generally better vibe I got at the respective interview weekends.

 

Regarding the curriculum, the biggest thing was the clerkship structure.

- At Queen's they start clerkship later... January of third year vs. September of third year for us.

- They also start electives 6 weeks into clerkship, whereas we finish all our core rotations in third year and then do all of our electives during Sept. - Dec. of fourth year. So we would have more experience by the time we go to other schools for electives.

- They also don't do some core rotations for the first time until after the CaRMS period.

 

For the first two years, their exam schedule seemed a little more daunting (only two sets of exams per school year... that's a hell of a lot of material for each exam), but that wasn't a huge deal to me.

 

Anyways, those were my own reasons for going to Western. The students on Queen's who I've met on elective in London/Windsor have been great, and I have a couple of close friends in meds there who are having a great experience at Queen's. The residents I have met who went to Queen's for meds were excellent as well. You shouldn't think of this is as a decision that you could regret for a long time if you make the "wrong" choice (because there isn't a wrong choice).

[Guest Platinum84]

How is the exam schedule at UWO? Exams after every "unit"? Or twice a year?

 

I thought I saw only 2 exam weeks on the old first-year schedule.

 

Thanks!

[Guest JSS02]

There's a schedule here. Three sets of exams in first year and three sets in second year. Until this past school year, the first year was divided in quarters (i.e. 4 sets of exams).

[Guest kaisermark]

Hey guys!

 

Thanks so much for all your comments, everyone's been super helpful! The picture is definitely becoming clearer for me. The biggest qualm I have with Queen's now is the rotations schedule. As queenslatifah says, I'm sure it won't hurt my matching chances. But doing all my core rotations first and then choosing my elective (before CaRMS nonetheless!) seems much more logical, as they do at Western. It seems lose-lose to finish off core rotations after CaRMS. Either you'll be doing rotations you have no interest in pursuing, or you'll realize that you're really interested in one of them but it's too late to change your CaRMS choices. This issue is becoming really big for me. All the other differences are either really insignificant, or I don't want them to be a factor (i.e. I prefer London over Kingston, I was more impressed with Western's facilities, etc., but I don't want that to be a reason).

 

The only issue I seem to have at the moment with Western is the large amounts of in-class hours. I'm told that Queen's first semester is a lot less (although maybe Queen's phase II is the same as Western?). I know people say that they're not mandatory, but still it appears more do-able to go to more lectures at Queen's than Western.

 

Now here's an interview question turned around - for those at Western, what would you say are the weaknesses of your program? For those at Queen's, what would you say are the weaknesses of yours?

 

Thanks again everyone, your posts are making a world of difference for me!

 

-Mark

[Guest aneliz]

Weaknesses of UWO:

 

1. Excessive number of class hours in first and second year

2. Frustrations with getting notes for said classes - ie they sometimes aren't posted on time or they get 'updated' a million times and you aren't sure if you have the correct set

3. Exams can be fairly stressful in second year... although I am sure this is not a UWO only problem.

4. Some annoying administrators... that put up miles of red tape and are annoyingly inefficient... (again not a UWO specific problem I imagine)

5. Clerk call schedules... that have you doing a full night of call prior to an exam if you get the unlucky draw - this will only affect 1/4 clerks on any given rotation - (they are addressing this right now, and although there is not yet a formal 'rule' you can usually get around this by talking to your resident and going home or to sleep at midnight)

[Guest lcloh]

1. Rural component. So it's mandatory. Some people actually take advantage of this and go to places like Milton, Halton Hills, Waterloo, Guelph, Oshawa, and live at home and party in Toronto. So it's actually not as bad as it sounds.

 

2. London being isolated. I completely disagree. Hamilton is 1 hour away, Toronto is 2 hours away, Windsor-Detroit is 2 hours away, Chicago is 6 and Montreal is 7 hours away by car. You can get anywhere in the world from DTW or YYZ as well (trust me, I've globetrotted through out my clerkship - Copenhagen, Baltimore, Washington DC, Panama City, Istanbul, New York)... London is ideally situated. The only cities that are more ideally situated would be Mac and Toronto. Kingston is way more isolated in terms of int'l airports, 3 hours away from Pearson, 3 hours away from Dorval...

 

3. As an edit: I took the advantage of doing my four-weeks rurally in Kenora (when I could have easily done it around the London area, or Windsor area, or Toronto area) and absolutely hated it. Definitely not my cup of tea, but at least I did get some good learning out of it and at least I can say I've tried rural now before knocking it

[Guest kaisermark]

K that's cool. I have another specific question. Can anyone tell me the difference between PBL (which Queen's has) and PCL (which Western has)? It seems to be very similar in that it's small group learning, but I'm not really sure how to discren between the two. Maybe the topics?

 

Thanks!

[Guest T dawg 2004]

PBL = Problem Based Learning

PCL = Patient-Centred Learning.

 

PCL at western is based on the idea of exploring resources, situations from the Patient's perspective and understanding various situations through their lives. It is a small-group based activity, and does not usually involve a "Problem", per se. There are objectives and we usually try to work along some basis, but it's not based on coming up with a "solution".

 

T dawg

[Guest UWOMED2005]

Both PCL and PBL are "buzzwords" that sound great but are highly dependent on implementation.

 

Personally, I didn't feel 'PCL' had anything to do with patient-centredness, and had a debateable amount of learning. I know there are numerous UWO students who would agree with that opinion.