Family medicine elective

[Bobby]

Hi everyone,

 

I'm really struggling right now in terms of deciding what to do WITH THE REST OF MY LIFE . Family practice is a possibility but also thinking of pediatrics and internal. Unfortunately, there are only so many electives I can do before CARMs time. I've heard from people that because there are so many family practice spots, its actually possible to not do any precarms electives in FM and still get accepted. What do you guys think?

 

If this is true, I'll just focus my precarms elective on internal and peds.

 

Thanks!

[olecranon]

for me its about inpatients vs outpatients. would you be happy dealing with a mostly senior population with multiple comorbidities and charting and paperwork and dictations and rounding required for internal or would you prefer to work in a clinic and be able to develop long term relationships with them and laugh and cry with them and see both kids and adults?

 

there is nothing wrong with family. people in my class who struggle with this decision often say look others are all specializing and if they can do it so can i and i would be selling myself short if i didn't. Not true. So much of what we see in a hospital setting and be prevented with good family medicine care.

[BigM]

There will be others than can advise you on this better (i.e. closer to CARMs) but you can get into family medicine without taking any electives in family. There are spots that go unfilled every year - I highly doubt they would turn away individuals just because they didn't take family electives. That said, there are probably some family medicine programs that have more competition so you may not have your choice if you don't take any electives in it.

 

Also, I feel like exposure to family medicine is very important for someone in internal medicine. You are going to need to learn many of the same skills and its very valuable to understand what happens in family medicine as that is where many internal medicine patients are coming from and returning to.

[national]

it depends where you want to do your residency. the rural programs, and a few choice urban programs (like toronto), tend to fill entirely in the first round. you'd definitely be at a disadvantage if you had no family medicine electives or reference letters.

[supafield]

The rural programs tend to fill out first? Is that true for most programs? I was wondering about where those vacancies were for Mac's program and UWO's FM program..I would guess the brampton site would fill up first for mac's fm program though.

 

I think that is what was meant by rural programs.... I was speaking to a member who did the Mac-Grimsby program, and although you wouldn't think people would be racing to apply to Grimsby, because it's such a small program, you only need a couple people applying to it, to make it competitive.

 

Here's a link that required logging into google docs to view... so just search carms 2010 vacancies if it doesn't work.

 

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:0HkOCQUr_qsJ:www.carms.ca/pdfs/2010R1_MatchResults/Summary%2520of%2520Vacancies%2520by%2520Medical%2520School%2520and%2520Discipline_en.pdf+carms+2010+vacancies&hl=en&gl=ca&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESg9QPCCn9d04Z-N8ZoqGK3k9BFrsOo8gOA5uk9JXHuQBuVhI03nNrpHTYTAyqhPOe_x18c7JgTx_YwNu7l0ln9b_F71fu4KWFpcpElh76Bh9VUpIu22bM63UPsUCvzl1K1HKCFp&sig=AHIEtbTT62rv8ewpEpyHKfOtFCb7th6J-w

 

McMaster had 5 FM spots open second round and Western had 27.

Ottawa didn't have any surprisingly.... Queen's 9..... Toronto is not even on the entire chart, so I presume UofT filled every spot they had first round.

 

Here's 2009 http://www.carms.ca/pdfs/2009R1_MatchResults/34MatchReport_E.pdf

Mac, Ottawa and Queen's and UofT all filled there FM program's first round... Competition is fierce lol.

[ruffryder]

New unrelated question - but didn't want to start a new thread about family practice electives.

 

If I want to say apply for family practice in Toronto, does anyone know if it helps if I do family practice electives in Toronto? Similarly for other major cities in Canada? Is it beneficial at all to do any OOP province electives in family?

[national]

As a general rule for carms - do electives in the specialty you want, at the location you want, and get a reference from them.

 

applies to family medicine as much as to anything else.

[Darla]

As a general rule for carms - do electives in the specialty you want, at the location you want, and get a reference from them.

 

applies to family medicine as much as to anything else.

 

True, but, also significantly more difficult to do in family given that there are so many consultants taking on students, so many programs when you consider how they are all broken down (I cut out many and still applied to 22 in this CaRMS round). Programs get it.

 

To the OP, some programs (Queens and UofT come to mind) specifically say on their CaRMS description that they "welcome a variety of electives including one in our specialty". I read that as I better do at least one elective in family so I dumped a PMR elective to add family.

[national]

True, but, also significantly more difficult to do in family given that there are so many consultants taking on students, so many programs when you consider how they are all broken down (I cut out many and still applied to 22 in this CaRMS round). Programs get it.

 

To the OP, some programs (Queens and UofT come to mind) specifically say on their CaRMS description that they "welcome a variety of electives including one in our specialty". I read that as I better do at least one elective in family so I dumped a PMR elective to add family.

 

22 programs is probably massive overkill (no offense), especially when you're paying per program past the 4 included in your carms application fee.

 

hey, i'm a family medicine resident and proud of it, but if you've got a pulse and didn't outright kill anyone during med school, you'll match into one of your top 4-5 choices

 

my intended advice (to the original poster) was that if you want a SPECIFIC program or location, you should do an elective there to maximize your chance. if you want family medicine, and don't care where you end up, do your electives in crack smoking and you'll still be fine.

[Darla]

22 programs is probably massive overkill (no offense), especially when you're paying per program past the 4 included in your carms application fee.

 

Not really - since I'm focused on rural medicine, those 22 programs include 19 which only hold spots for 1 or 2 people. While I'm a strong applicant, it would be arrogant to think that my number one spot will definitely give one of the 2 positions to me when there are 5 of us gunning for it.

 

I would agree that it was overkill if I was only applying to urban centres, then I would have been comfortable with applying to one or two schools. The rural selection in CaRMS is a bit trickier and not as much of a sure thing.

[national]

as a rural FM resident involved in the carms process, i'll politely disagree.

 

yes, i wouldn't advise someone to ONLY apply to say, the UBC peace liard site or Dal cape breton site without ANY backup. like you say, it's a numbers game. however, i'll stick to my guns that a sensible applicant can rank only rural sites and get within their top 3-4 choices. while there might be a fair number of applicants to these sites, the applicants don't necessarily end up ranking them highly (if at all). there's a lot of programs to choose from.

 

i'd never argue against being safe, but the whole carms process just inspires panic and anxiety, so i want to dispel any myths.

[Bobby]

Wow, haven't checked for awhile, but thank you so much to all for such comprehensive replies. Gives me a lot to think about