UBC vs UofM

[canucks4ever]

Hi everyone,

 

I am interested in hearing from current U of M students about their experience. I grew up in BC but have spent the last 5 years here in Winnipeg and have grown to love the city. It truly is the friendliest of Canada. So I am deciding between UBC (accepted) and U of M (waiting until June 4th) if that opportunity comes up. A couple of questions:

 

1. How are the exams scheduled? ie. all in one week or over at once or otherwise

 

2. In clinical skills group what is the ratio of instructors to students? How much emphasis is put on family medicine exposure?

 

3. UBC has problem based learning (PBL). Does U of M have something similar and how much time is devoted to it.

 

4. During clerkship, what is the hospital environment like? In other words, are the hospitals stretched thin thereby forcing you to compete with residents to do basic things. Also, is clerkship based at only 2 hospitals? What can you say about your clerkship experience?

 

5. Are electronic lectures available online?

 

 

6. What is the class like? In other words, is it competetive or everybody helps each other out, are there lots of people with diverse experiences etc

 

7. How well do students do in matching outside of the province?

 

I don´t expect every question to be answered but a little bit of input would be great! Would love to stay here. Thanks in advance!

[medston]

I am in the exact same boat: accepted at ubc and waiting/hoping for MB on june 4. my friend went through mb, says it was great. here's my two cents and be warned it's not necessarily factual:

 

1. exams. for mb i was looking at the block schedules online last year. looks like the exams run at the ends of blocks. is this what you mean? my friend also says this is true. i was reading a link about ubc exams and was confused as it seemed to imply exams were all at once. i don't get it - all the blocks are tested at once? when, at the end of the year, or once at xmas, again in the spring?

 

2. i hear the clinical skills groups are small in mb but i don't know the numbers. take a look: there are as many hospitals in wpg as in vancouver, but half the number of med students.

 

3. dunno

 

4. i recall my friend being all over the place during clerkship in mb: st. B, hsc, seven oaks, perhaps mis, and perhaps the one out in st. james as well. he was also in winkler and selkirk. my friend said that he felt he was ahead of most other residents when he started his family res in ontario, although he said he felt the toronto, alberta, and uwo people were quite good.

 

5. i read yesterday that ubc will have lectures online starting this year. manitoba does - i recall they told us that in the pre interview tour.

 

6. friend says everyone helps each other in mb although there is always that fine balance between helping/competing. i met his class several times and they seemed pretty tight. also older than the ubc class, i think. i felt that at the ubc interview the students were quite young (< 25 avg) while at mb the class was older (25+ avg). just my feeling though, and it could have just been the day.

 

7. matching. i am worried about this as well. i have been asking some other friends and i get both answers: nah doesn't matter, yes it does matter. e.g., unofficially i think bc grads would be preferred over oop grads. maybe used as a tiebreaker? i would assume the same everywhere: it makes sense really, the provinces want to retain their people and develop long term relationships with the patients and systems. i've heard similar thing from UK doc friends about post-res, i.e., where you do your res highly influences where you will get a job after. this is a biggie for me and might sway me to ubc even though i'd rather go to mb for the training (more hands on, very traditional program, less money, easy city to live in).

 

Again, could be total BS but I've had three respected medical people tell me to take MB if given the chance. All say the mb training is, again, rigorous and traditional. these people are not from mb or bc. that said, i do wonder if the ubc name would open doors upon graduation, especially for international stuff. i am hoping to be given the choice on june 4, although my mb interview was slightly less strong than the ubc interview! c'mon mb!

[liszt]

1. How are the exams scheduled? ie. all in one week or over at once or otherwise

The UofM preclerkship curriculum is divide into six blocks (three in each of the two years) consisting of 3-4 subjects each block. At the end of each block, those subjects only are tested over 1-2 days in MCQ, problem solving, and anatomy (blocks 3-6 only) exams. There is a formative clinical skills OSCE at the end of year 1, and summative OSCEs at the end of years 2 & 3. In clerkship, there are NBME shelf exams for 5/8 of the core rotations (ob/gyn, psych, medicine, surgery, peds) written at the end of each rotation.

 

2. In clinical skills group what is the ratio of instructors to students? How much emphasis is put on family medicine exposure?

Group size has never been a concern. Usually between 4-6 students for every preceptor in the Med 1 CS skill sessions, and the Med 2 CPAs -- but it's occasionally more of less depending on the facilities, subject matter, and scheduling. My class has only 100 students vs. the 110 now, so I'm not sure whether they've compensated by creating more groups or have more students per preceptor. I haven't found any obvious emphasis on family med stuff during clinical skills. If that's something you're interested in, though, it's really easy to set up time to do exposures in whatever areas you're curious about.

 

3. UBC has problem based learning (PBL). Does U of M have something similar and how much time is devoted to it.

Manitoba's emphasis is definitely on didactic learning, but does incorporate PBL in it's Problem Solving (PR) program. There is about 3 hours weekly to meet with your group and preceptor, and there is an hour of protected time to research your learning objective(s), which was always plenty.

 

4. During clerkship, what is the hospital environment like? In other words, are the hospitals stretched thin thereby forcing you to compete with residents to do basic things. Also, is clerkship based at only 2 hospitals? What can you say about your clerkship experience?

Before your rotations you'll get the opportunity to pick what sites you'd like to be placed at. Some are only available at HSC and SBGH, but many can be done at community sites. I've completed rotations at VGH and Grace along with SBGH and HSC. I've never felt like I've been competing with residents for experience, nor have I felt overwhelmed by a lack of resident or attending support. The residents learning goals vs. the clerks are usually quite different, and most residents I've met have no problem letting the clerk suture or operate the camera of the laparoscope, and are happy to bring you along for interesting cases, though sometimes you do have to speak up and show your interest. The majority of the residents and attending I've worked with have been excellent teachers, easy to work with, patient, and seem genuinely happy to have a student working with them.

5. Are electronic lectures available online?

Yes. When I was in preclerkship, we had a class website that had uploads of most powerpoints. I believe they're now contained on the new OPAL site, but I can't speak much about that.

 

6. What is the class like? In other words, is it competetive or everybody helps each other out, are there lots of people with diverse experiences etc

For the most part I've found that people are very willing to help each other out. While the majority of the class is in their early twenties, there's a fairly decent array of ages (my class: 19-45 on admission), previous careers (from pilots to chiropractors), and life experiences within the class.

7. How well do students do in matching outside of the province?

This varies year to year, and it's hard to speak to matching out of Manitoba, specifically. This year, 95% of the MB Class of 2010 matched to their first choice discipline (national avg. 90.9%), including many competitive programs across the country (including OOP plastics, ophtho and derm spots). Success in the match is absolutely multifactorial, but I don't think you have to worry about being at any disadvantage at the UofMB. The fact that our elective period follows completion of core clerkship means you'll be quite experienced and more polished by the time you go on electives at the schools you're targeting.

 

Let me know if you have any other questions... and congratulations! This is definitely an exciting choice you get to make!

[anti-dentite23]

UBC all the way guys. UofM is good but c'mon, anybody who got into both would take UBC. Most people don't even know Manitoba has a med school but everyone knows UBC. Be a man, do the right thing.

[canucks4ever]

Thanks for the time taken to provide me with these thoughtful and cohesive answers to my questions. I appreciate it and will consider these facts if I get to make a decision. Good luck in your medical careers!

[liszt]

UBC all the way guys. UofM is good but c'mon, anybody who got into both would take UBC. Most people don't even know Manitoba has a med school but everyone knows UBC. Be a man, do the right thing.

 

This reasoning is akin to choosing a "prestigious" undergraduate institution because it will increase the chance of getting into med school, in spite of the fact that admissions committees don't care. Unless, perhaps, you're absolutely set on doing your residency at UBC (as it is more difficult to get electives there because of their increasingly high enrollment -- though not at all impossible), or an Ivy-League school in the US, it's your attitude and capability that will make a difference in CaRMS, not what Canadian school awarded you an MD. I guarantee every program director in Canada knows Manitoba has medical school.

 

Choosing UBC over Manitoba because of location, family, particular educational interests, program highlights, etc. makes a lot of sense, but because "most people don't know Manitoba has a med school" doesn't. No Manitoba grads are hurting for patients because the population doesn't trust a doctor from MB.