Canadians going to TCD!!

[seeking1]

Thank you for the heads up on that. I took the liberty of looking up more discussions about this on the forums, and saw that you've already had a rather long discussion with others about this. While the points you've made in that thread are good, further research (SDN thread) is suggesting to me that Canadians are getting back into residencies here in Canada that they want to be in. Comments/thoughts Mashmetoo?

[Mashmetoo]

Thank you for the heads up on that. I took the liberty of looking up more discussions about this on the forums, and saw that you've already had a rather long discussion with others about this. While the points you've made in that thread are good, further research (SDN thread) is suggesting to me that Canadians are getting back into residencies here in Canada that they want to be in. Comments/thoughts Mashmetoo?

 

No matter where you go, there's bound to be a few "Canadians" who "made it back" to Canada for residency. Do Canadians make it back form Ireland? yes. Australia? yes. The Caribbean? heck yes. But what about the numbers? If I told you that only 26 Canadians made it back from Australia this year (out of how many Canadians? several hundred?), would you still be that eager to go there? As for Ireland, if I were to tell you that around 20 Canadians make it back from Ireland to a Canadian residency each year, would you still be so willing to go? Yes, ~20 Canadians come back each year from Ireland, but how many Canadians are there in total? (again, less than a hundred? several hundred? - I deduced the Irish Canadian numbers from CAPER data). As I said multiple times before, leaving Canada for med school basically means ending up going to the US (simply because the uncertainty of the match is simply too great, and the stigma of being an IMG, even an Irish IMG, will not help). So putting all your eggs into the Canadian basket and hoping against all odds that you'll end up coming back to Canada (while ignoring the US options for a basically "guaranteed" US residency by doing a US MD/DO school) seems like a bad choice to me. As someone said on SDN, think of it this way: would you give up Jessica Alba JUST to have a shot at Megan Fox? ... Also, I would be more concerned with the ROS contract that you have to sign with the government once you return home to do your Canadian residency. The ROS basically goes like: you have to do FIVE years in a designated underserved area (most likely some northern Rural community where it's freezing 2/3 of the year). And if you were to break your ROS, you'd OWE the government 100k for each year of residency you did - this doesn't really make Canada sound like the most welcoming place for IMGs now does it?

 

No matter where you go, there's bound to be a few Canadians who will make it back for one reason or another, but that doesn't mean that YOU will make it back. It's about your quality of life as a med student during and after med school. The life of an IMG, hoping for a Canadian residency with absolutely no certainty and left to the whims of the Canadian government, getting treated like dirt on the US residency match because you are a foreign IMG, the stress of the match, treatment as an IMG in a Canadian residency, restriction of movement even if you did come back to Canada for residency, all made me think thrice about leaving Canada/US for school.