tooty Posted March 10, 2011 Report Share Posted March 10, 2011 http://www.carms.ca/pdfs/2010R1_MatchResults/Match%20Results%20by%20First%20and%20Lower%20Ranked%20Program%20Choices_en.pdf Toronto and Calgary did terribad. 11+ went unmatched. Does this say anything about their programs? edit: i realize these stats are from last year. waiting for this year's stats. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HBP Posted March 10, 2011 Report Share Posted March 10, 2011 A ton of factors I suppose. Also... you have to look at class size. 11/222 is pretty much the same as 5/97 (Queens). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cardiomegaly Posted March 10, 2011 Report Share Posted March 10, 2011 Those are last years stats. I think it'd be more helpful to look at trends rather than an individual class... I don't know if blame can be placed anywhere specific, usually a student going unmatched is a huge combination of things, location, competitiveness of program, were they smart enough about how they set up their electives, did they do electives when they were competent enough to impress, were they realistic, how many interviews did they actually get, did they back up... U of C had 14 unmatched this year, U of A 6. (class sizes ~140-150) Scary stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MickJoe Posted March 10, 2011 Report Share Posted March 10, 2011 Interesting article on the vagaries of the matching process: http://www.bcmj.org/editorials/choosing-right-resident Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cardiomegaly Posted March 10, 2011 Report Share Posted March 10, 2011 Great article, thanks. The problem isn't always funding the residency spots, it's how a program can adequately train a certain number of residents. You can't have 10 plastic surgery residents at one program, they wouldn't have enough learning opportunities and preceptors and OR time. Same goes for a specialty like family medicine - every resident needs a preceptor, every resident has to rotate through general surgery, internal medicine, orthopedics, etc so that program has to be able to accommodate them with proper learning experiences. Not all doctors get paid for taking student learners and they also slow you down (I know that most of them do it out of a passion for teaching and whatnot but you have to be realistic). Too many learners for an overworked system is a huge problem for the next few years of graduating classes. You see too many students standing in the back watching surgeries. Too many students on each CTU team so your patient load can be down to 1-2 on something like peds. My class will have almost 50 more students than the 2011 class that just matched. There are 17 unmatched spots available in the 2nd iteration at U of A. Calgary's 2012 class is 180, they had 5 spots left over. You do the math. Almost every med school in Canada had some sort of expansion in the past few years. Royal college programs will not be increasing their spaces by much, most spots will come out of family medicine (much needed) but honestly I can't see them creating that many more spots out of thin air. Unfortunately, it's not going to look any better for IMGs when we can't even handle our own graduating students. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iMD Posted March 10, 2011 Report Share Posted March 10, 2011 Interesting article on the vagaries of the matching process: http://www.bcmj.org/editorials/choosing-right-resident That is true. I wish I spent my 4th year learning medicine instead of learning the system. I would love to do a transitional rotating year before going in to my field of choice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justletmein Posted March 10, 2011 Report Share Posted March 10, 2011 these are 2010 stats Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlackJack Posted March 10, 2011 Report Share Posted March 10, 2011 Great article, thanks. The problem isn't always funding the residency spots, it's how a program can adequately train a certain number of residents. That is true. A logical first step would be to jettison the Gulf funded residents to make room for our domestic grads. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darla Posted March 10, 2011 Report Share Posted March 10, 2011 That is true. A logical first step would be to jettison the Gulf funded residents to make room for our domestic grads. If they are indeed taking spots that domestic grads would. My experience is that they are mostly in IM which tend to not fill up in the first iteration. No stats to support this though, definitely open to debate As far as numbers going unmatched, it can depend on the personality of the class and its members as well. If the students want to throw everything they have at a program and not "back up" with something they aren't 100% sure they'll love in the hopes that a spot will remain open somewhere in the country, they may not match. For a non-trivial number of applicants, the 2nd iteration is part of their game plan from the beginning. It's a brave move that sometimes pays off but doesn't always. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cantbreathe Posted March 10, 2011 Report Share Posted March 10, 2011 never mind. misread one of the posts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NLengr Posted March 10, 2011 Report Share Posted March 10, 2011 The BCMJ article is great and says what a huge number of people are thinking. A rotating internship would be advantageous for everyone. Students would get a chance to practice clinical medicine before they were forced to decide on a specialty, residency programs would have a wider pool of more experienced applicants and the public would see an increase in family doctors if general practice licenses were reinstated. People would take a few years off between medical school and residency to do some locums to pay down debt and start a family. By getting rid of general practice licenses, we have essentially caused a reduction in the family doctor workforce. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarathonRunner Posted March 10, 2011 Report Share Posted March 10, 2011 The BCMJ article is great and says what a huge number of people are thinking. A rotating internship would be advantageous for everyone. Students would get a chance to practice clinical medicine before they were forced to decide on a specialty, residency programs would have a wider pool of more experienced applicants and the public would see an increase in family doctors if general practice licenses were reinstated. People would take a few years off between medical school and residency to do some locums to pay down debt and start a family. By getting rid of general practice licenses, we have essentially caused a reduction in the family doctor workforce. +1. Agree completely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tooty Posted March 10, 2011 Author Report Share Posted March 10, 2011 these are 2010 stats doh. are 2011 stats out? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snoozy Posted March 10, 2011 Report Share Posted March 10, 2011 http://www.carms.ca/pdfs/2010R1_MatchResults/Match%20Results%20by%20First%20and%20Lower%20Ranked%20Program%20Choices_en.pdf Toronto and Calgary did terribad. 11+ went unmatched. Does this say anything about their programs? I am a student graduating from Calgary's 2011 class and I have to say there was an unusually larger number of students that went unmatched in 1st iteration last year - and that is considering that many Malaysian students at Calgary tried to match for CaRMS, and without a Canadian citizenship/PR the only choice they have was Memorial University of Newfoundland. So the narrow choice of schools/programs led to the high number of unmatched spots. Traditionally Calgary had done VERY well with the match (>95% success rate in 1st round) if you look at the statistics in the past 10 years. Having matched to a competitive specialty and a solid program this year and having genuinely enjoyed clerkship in Calgary I believe that our school has a very strong pre-clerkship and clerkship program, excellent preceptors and enthusiastic faculty/staff member who are very responsive to feedback. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calgary7 Posted March 11, 2011 Report Share Posted March 11, 2011 I am a student graduating from Calgary's 2011 class and I have to say there was an unusually larger number of students that went unmatched in 1st iteration last year - and that is considering that many Malaysian students at Calgary tried to match for CaRMS, and without a Canadian citizenship/PR the only choice they have was Memorial University of Newfoundland. So the narrow choice of schools/programs led to the high number of unmatched spots. Traditionally Calgary had done VERY well with the match (>95% success rate in 1st round) if you look at the statistics in the past 10 years. Having matched to a competitive specialty and a solid program this year and having genuinely enjoyed clerkship in Calgary I believe that our school has a very strong pre-clerkship and clerkship program, excellent preceptors and enthusiastic faculty/staff member who are very responsive to feedback. +1 million! I don't think the number of people unmatched is a fair representation of our school's program. There are so many factors that have to be considered and generalizations really can't be made based on a year or two, and like snoozy said above, our school has historically matched pretty solidly (at or above the match rate of most schools in Canada). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peachy Posted March 11, 2011 Report Share Posted March 11, 2011 Toronto and Calgary did terribad. 11+ went unmatched. Does this say anything about their programs? The number unmatched is based on (1) the size of the program, as several folks above have noted, and (2) the number of people who apply to highly competitive programs, and (3) the number of people who only want to live in highly competitive cities. Imho it really says nothing about the program at any school. If it's a popular year for urology, ophtho, and derm, it's also going to be a year with more unmatched students! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A-Stark Posted March 11, 2011 Report Share Posted March 11, 2011 Seems that comparing the proportions of unmatched grads would make a lot more sense. Dal did terribly last year in terms of first-choice matches (50%), but was the best in the country in 2009. Anecdotally things have gone pretty well this year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BoyInTheBubble Posted March 11, 2011 Report Share Posted March 11, 2011 Students would get a chance to practice clinical medicine before they were forced to decide on a specialty, residency programs would have a wider pool of more experienced applicants I agree, however if you know what you want, you don't need to 'waste' your time. Most people get a specialty they like with the current system. Not perfect, but it's pretty good. That being said, it's probably MORE challenging to get on to a training program in the UK and AUS (who use that system). In fact, it's probably even harder to get realllllllly competitive things like ophthal because applicants have to be SOOOO good in the new system. and the public would see an increase in family doctors if general practice licenses were reinstated......By getting rid of general practice licenses, we have essentially caused a reduction in the family doctor workforce. I think you are mistaken. In the UK and AUS, where they have a one year rotating internship, you get a general medical license after one year. You cannot set up a family practice/general practice with that license. You can just continue to work low level hospital jobs. It's essentially a license to be a second year resident not a "general practitioner". It takes people 2-3 years post-grad to get into the general practice training program, and another 2-3 to complete. So, it's a leap of faith to assume that we get more family doctors that way. In fact, 2 years is about the fastest way to become a family doctor (it's own specialty) any where in the world... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlackJack Posted March 11, 2011 Report Share Posted March 11, 2011 I agree, however if you know what you want, you don't need to 'waste' your time. Most people get a specialty they like with the current system. Not perfect, but it's pretty good. That being said, it's probably MORE challenging to get on to a training program in the UK and AUS (who use that system). In fact, it's probably even harder to get realllllllly competitive things like ophthal because applicants have to be SOOOO good in the new system. I think you are mistaken. In the UK and AUS, where they have a one year rotating internship, you get a general medical license after one year. You cannot set up a family practice/general practice with that license. You can just continue to work low level hospital jobs. It's essentially a license to be a second year resident not a "general practitioner". It takes people 2-3 years post-grad to get into the general practice training program, and another 2-3 to complete. So, it's a leap of faith to assume that we get more family doctors that way. In fact, 2 years is about the fastest way to become a family doctor (it's own specialty) any where in the world... I think you are both referring to different things. In the UK its kind of a grandfathering-style system. You work as a house officer until someone senior retires or dies, and you take his place. NLengr is referring to the pre-carms system that existed such that every medical grad who had completed their year-long rotating internship could practice as a family doctor in its complete scope. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmorelan Posted March 11, 2011 Report Share Posted March 11, 2011 doh. are 2011 stats out? Those won't be released until post 2nd round historically if I remember correctly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BoyInTheBubble Posted March 11, 2011 Report Share Posted March 11, 2011 the pre-carms system that existed such that every medical grad who had completed their year-long rotating internship could practice as a family doctor in its complete scope. Currently, family medicine is recognized as it's own specialty. It's not just something you do because you couldn't do any better.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NLengr Posted March 11, 2011 Report Share Posted March 11, 2011 Currently, family medicine is recognized as it's own specialty. It's not just something you do because you couldn't do any better.... It wasn't something you did back then because you couldn't do any better either. Many people did a few years of general practice before specializing for reasons I have previously mentioned (time off of school, have kids, pay down debt) etc. And Blackjack is correct. I was referring to the old system of the 1990s and prior, when Canadian grads could practice with a general license. Also, making family med it's own specialty may or may not have improved the system. What may be a good compromise between the new and the old system is to let family docs who have been practicing 5 years or less have a second chance to enter the first round of carms. That way people can still take a few years to work as a family doc without the penalty of never being able to access good opportunities to specialize ever again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poppyseed Posted March 11, 2011 Report Share Posted March 11, 2011 McGill had 13 unmatched this year and it was a lot of GOOD candidates. In addition, some of the people who matched got specialties/locations they put lower on their list so there was a bit of disappointment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlackJack Posted March 11, 2011 Report Share Posted March 11, 2011 In response to a previous comment, I was just wondering whether old system somewhat contributed to the "hidden curriculum" phenomenon seen today, where family medicine is regarded as a specialty reserved as a back-up/for those who are not ambitious enough to pursue a longer residency. The new system also contributes to the hidden curriculum in the way that any candidate, regardless of perceived ability, can match to family medicine, whereas only the supposed best of the best can go into something like plastics. It's a supply/demand issue, the same way that a Honda Fit is a less desirable car than a Lamborghini Diablo. There are more spots, and the spots require less "payment", so the value of the spots is seen to be low. Perhaps the main issue is not only in how medical graduates match to specialties/general practice but in how residency programs gauge applicants. If, say, applicants were never barred from entering round one of carms, there would be far more mature applicants with real world medical experience and a prior residency applying, and such experience could be construed as valuable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yamuh Posted March 12, 2011 Report Share Posted March 12, 2011 http://www.carms.ca/pdfs/2010R1_MatchResults/Match%20Results%20by%20First%20and%20Lower%20Ranked%20Program%20Choices_en.pdf Toronto and Calgary did terribad. 11+ went unmatched. Does this say anything about their programs? These stats are from last year... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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