UofC Med Students/Clerks: Competency Compared to Others?

[mm88]

This is a topic of interest for me too, so thank you to everyone who posted. So say you want to do a non-competitive specialty like family (which is what I'm considering.... does that mean going to Calgary really isn't really going to set you back that far in terms of Carms?

 

The real question should be: who in their right mind would want to spend 3 years in Calgary?

 

When the choice is between prairies without mountains or prairies near mountains, you choose prairies near mountains... hence Calgary

[moo]

Wow, I have to thank everyone who has taken the time to reply so far. I really appreciate all of the input, this is exactly what I was looking for.

 

I for one do not doubt that UofC is an excellent medical school, and one that I would be happy to attend. But I still can't help but feel that the way the curriculum is set up may put some at a disadvantage. I'm really not worried about spending one more year in school and saving one year's worth of tuition. Peanuts. Getting an education in a system that is set up to help me succeed should I choose to pursue a competitive specialty is more important to me as a prospective student. I'm glad that, as others have pointed out, this is not something that is a huge problem at UofC. I guess as a student, you would have to play your cards right and use your time wisely.

 

I feel like the opinions have been quite polarized- which I think is normal and which I had suspected- but there are opinions, such as the one below, that continue to worry me.

 

 

 

Also re: the quote below, as someone mentioned earlier, doesn't UofC use PBL in their curriculum as well? What makes Mac grads so different, then?

Most schools use some PBL. Mac almost uses PBL exclusively.

[tooty]

So say you want to do a non-competitive specialty like family (which is what I'm considering.... does that mean going to Calgary really isn't really going to set you back that far in terms of Carms?p

 

No one can say with absolute certainty but my feeling is that this is the case. It won't set you back period. U of c even told their students that if they want family med at u of c they are almost guaranteed a spot

[aaronjw]

No one can say with absolute certainty but my feeling is that this is the case. It won't set you back period. U of c even told their students that if they want family med at u of c they are almost guaranteed a spot

 

I wonder if this would be similar to Mac, being it a 3yr program as well.

 

In fact i'd imagine much of the discussion in thid thread likely applies to Mac as well?

[NLengr]

This is a topic of interest for me too, so thank you to everyone who posted. So say you want to do a non-competitive specialty like family (which is what I'm considering.... does that mean going to Calgary really isn't really going to set you back that far in terms of carms.

 

Well tobehonest, we don't even have evidence that u of c affects ability to match to competitive specialties.

[lostintime]

I heard that's the case for most family programs, i.e. almost guaranteeing their own students a spot, unless maybe the more competitive family programs like UBC/UT/Mac etc.

[RaVen777]

I know a lot of people in my class who are doing research. They seem to be pleased with the opportunities they have (and the university staff seem to be understanding of our schedule), but the fact remains that we don't get summers off. Several months of research time in the summer would make a huge difference.

 

I am still a long way off from 3rd year (and Carms applications), but I will admit I feel a bit of pressure to decide early. If I wanted to do something more competitive (I'm interested in IM at the moment), I would probably feel disadvantaged. We'll see how it goes.

 

I love the city though, and my classmates are great! No regrets about choosing Calgary.

[NLengr]

Surprisingly, even for the highly competitive specialties, research is still not that important. It's far down on the list of important attributes. And even then, the quality of the research even less so.

 

The most important things my program (a highly competitive specialty) looks for is:

Like-ability

Work Ethic

General intelligience/knowledge

Good references from people we trust

 

Research is way down below these.

[Lactic Folly]

I'll add that the value of research lies not so much in the research itself (unless you are applying to Clinician Investigator or something like that), but rather the inferences about work ethic (e.g. writing up papers despite a hectic clerkship schedule) and presumably intelligence (as in your research supervisor attesting to your ability to learn a complex topic well).

 

As well, research is often a good way to establish a longer term relationship with someone, leading to a stronger reference than if they had simply observed you for a few weeks during a core rotation or elective.

[tooty]

Surprisingly, even for the highly competitive specialties, research is still not that important. It's far down on the list of important attributes. And even then, the quality of the research even less so.

 

The most important things my program (a highly competitive specialty) looks for is:

Like-ability

Work Ethic

General intelligience/knowledge

Good references from people we trust

 

Research is way down below these.

 

How do they select interviewees to begin with?

 

It seems that they need to put a lot of weight on the reference letters and having met you, because nothing else on the application will say that much. PDs don't look much into the dean's letter, all our grades are P's, and now you're saying research isn't important.

[TeaHatingBrit]

Wow, I have to thank everyone who has taken the time to reply so far. I really appreciate all of the input, this is exactly what I was looking for.

 

I for one do not doubt that UofC is an excellent medical school, and one that I would be happy to attend. But I still can't help but feel that the way the curriculum is set up may put some at a disadvantage. I'm really not worried about spending one more year in school and saving one year's worth of tuition. Peanuts. Getting an education in a system that is set up to help me succeed should I choose to pursue a competitive specialty is more important to me as a prospective student. I'm glad that, as others have pointed out, this is not something that is a huge problem at UofC. I guess as a student, you would have to play your cards right and use your time wisely.

 

I feel like the opinions have been quite polarized- which I think is normal and which I had suspected- but there are opinions, such as the one below, that continue to worry me.

 

 

 

Also re: the quote below, as someone mentioned earlier, doesn't UofC use PBL in their curriculum as well? What makes Mac grads so different, then?

 

 

The interesting thing about the above quote - is that I personally did an elective in 2 cities outside of Calgary and preceptors there told me I was a better/more prepared clerk than any of the students they had seen from their school, and their evaluations reflected these statements.

 

You'll have good and crappy students from every school - that onus to be good or bad is on the student, not the school.

[Lactic Folly]

Well - if someone has great clinical evaluations across the board (some schools offer more details than others), that suggests you are likeable and competent.

 

If you can manage excellent grades (most schools are P/F, but there are still awards, and pre-med stuff can still help) on top of extracurricular and research accomplishments, you're probably smart and hardworking to boot.

 

But yes, you're right, personal knowledge and reference letters can be quite influential, and even then, it can be tough to differentiate between candidates - hence the crapshoot aspect of CaRMS.

[cardiomegaly]

You'll have good and crappy students from every school - that onus to be good or bad is on the student, not the school.

 

dingdingding!!!

 

Good call. It sucks, but eventually schools do get a general stereotype, sometimes undeserved and totally unfounded. Sometimes they have a bit of truth.

 

For example, if I said that U of T students were book smart, research oriented and super competitive, or that UWO students like to party, or U of C students are on average older, Quebec students are really young, would you agree? I'm not saying by any means that these statements are true but you may have heard that before. It's up to you as a medical student to prove your own worth, rather than assume your school's stereotype or reputation.

[D-Rock]

...I personally did an elective in 2 cities outside of Calgary and preceptors there told me I was a better/more prepared clerk than any of the students they had seen from their school...

 

You'll have good and crappy students from every school

 

As mentioned above and elsewhere, there are good and bad students at every school. Good UofC students are just as good as any other school's products and vice versa. As a resident at the UofC, I find that UofC clerks tend to be good at what they want to do but are weak in other areas. Again, this doesn't hold true for the good students as the person above most likely is (or the bad, who are weak everywhere, like any school), but it really affects those middle of the ground students.

 

I also think it is a problem to not do all your core rotations, or at the very least med/peds/IM before going on electives. UofC is not unique in this, as I know that at least one other school (Toronto) has students do those rotations at any time in their two senior years. But it puts clerks at a severe disadvantage in September when I ask them to give me their approach to a hypotensive or febrile patient (I'm in surgery, not IM), and they are disorganized and terribly incomplete.

 

Having said all that, I think these differences evaporate after a few months or so of residency. And on top of that, I would go to any Canadian medical over any foreign school given the choice. There are no bad med schools in Canada and no one is poorly educated.

[A-Stark]

That's a really good point. As you say, it may not matter in the end, but it really strikes me that completing most if not all core rotations prior to the bulk of the elective period is an advantage. Having started my electives immediately after 12 weeks of inpatient medicine, subspecialty medicine, and ICU, I felt pretty comfortable with initial approaches to most patient presentations and certainly those who were unstable/sick. This really crystallized for me on an emerg elective before Christmas - I enjoyed it way more than my core emerg rotation simply because I knew what to do and felt confident in my assessments and decisions while presenting to staff.

 

As for basic sciences, I find that knowledge of the underlying mechanisms of disease processes makes clinical medicine that much more fascinating and enjoyable. They're also not irrelevant in residency. In the fall while on a gen surg elective, I remember a grand rounds talk about serrated adenomas, complete with detailed pathological (and genetics!) content. One of the attendings commented that such details were fair game for questions on a Royal College exam.

 

It's true that the Krebs cycle doesn't come up much after first year, but I'm not sure that the mechanism of amiodarone or the branches of the external carotid won't.

[NLengr]

How do they select interviewees to begin with?

 

It seems that they need to put a lot of weight on the reference letters and having met you, because nothing else on the application will say that much. PDs don't look much into the dean's letter, all our grades are P's, and now you're saying research isn't important.

 

From the criteria I listed mostly. In competitive specialties a huge amount comes down to what the program selection committee members think of you post elective. You can have 15 papers published in JAMA, but if you are lazy, hard to tolerate, and/or have poor knowledge of the material in the specialty compared to other applicants, you are unlikely to be ranked high, even if you are interviewed.

 

The best way to view research is as a valuable adjuvant to your application, not as one of the core criteria. And even then, it sometimes is more of a tick box, rather than an in-depth eval of how good each persons research is.

[TeaHatingBrit]

That's a really good point. As you say, it may not matter in the end, but it really strikes me that completing most if not all core rotations prior to the bulk of the elective period is an advantage. Having started my electives immediately after 12 weeks of inpatient medicine, subspecialty medicine, and ICU, I felt pretty comfortable with initial approaches to most patient presentations and certainly those who were unstable/sick. This really crystallized for me on an emerg elective before Christmas - I enjoyed it way more than my core emerg rotation simply because I knew what to do and felt confident in my assessments and decisions while presenting to staff.

 

As for basic sciences, I find that knowledge of the underlying mechanisms of disease processes makes clinical medicine that much more fascinating and enjoyable. They're also not irrelevant in residency. In the fall while on a gen surg elective, I remember a grand rounds talk about serrated adenomas, complete with detailed pathological (and genetics!) content. One of the attendings commented that such details were fair game for questions on a Royal College exam.

 

It's true that the Krebs cycle doesn't come up much after first year, but I'm not sure that the mechanism of amiodarone or the branches of the external carotid won't.

 

Absolutely true that having your core rotations done prior to electives makes it much easier to excel on rotations, and that definitely is a downside to U of C.

 

But it is pretty easy to get around; staff often ask where you are in Clerkship, and when you're at the very beginning - most understand where your knowledge level should be, and rank you based on that.

 

The other thing you do need to do is be prepared for the electives you have, so that you can attempt to shine.

 

 

So - I can understand the concern with U of C, but all around they pump out excellent students and residents, and everyone does just fine.

 

Plus you're done an year early.

[rogerroger]

I can't comment on UofC. But looking back at my own 3.5/4 years of medical school it is super easy to see how a fine medical education could be condensed into 3 years. Heck, I would probably favour three years versus four years if I was to do it again.

[A-Stark]

I think the only absolute disadvantage of a 3-year program is for those who are not sure what they want to do (i.e. me*). There's just that much less time to get to know people at your home school and get involved in research, observerships, and other activities that can help.

 

(*Not that I'm really that undecided or ever was, just that I'm in the camp of likely being happy in more than one area.)

[D-Rock]

I remember a grand rounds talk about serrated adenomas, complete with detailed pathological (and genetics!) content. One of the attendings commented that such details were fair game for questions on a Royal College exam.

 

Our oral, intraining, and RC exams routinely include questions with a history/physical exam that narrows the differential, and then histology slides to come up with the formal diagnosis. You have to know that stuff, and while you don't need to know it before residency, it helps to be familiar with as much background stuff as possible. It's amazing what I thought was irrelevant but became important, and what I thought was key but completely useless.

[tooty]

As for basic sciences, I find that knowledge of the underlying mechanisms of disease processes makes clinical medicine that much more fascinating and enjoyable. They're also not irrelevant in residency. In the fall while on a gen surg elective, I remember a grand rounds talk about serrated adenomas, complete with detailed pathological (and genetics!) content. One of the attendings commented that such details were fair game for questions on a Royal College exam.

 

I agree that basics sciences makes clinical learning more enjoyable but it is largely irrelevant at the end of the day. Sure, knowledge of a narrower scope of basic science topics will be expected for royal college exams but no one should select a 4-year school over a 3-year for that reason. And we don't even know if U of C students really learn less than U of A. I think it's the same. To be accredited by CACMS, U of C needs to meet all the standards set for all other Canadian medical schools, standards which includes an x number of lecture hours.

 

Just like roger said, 4-year schools can have a lot of wasted time. I've spent countless hours doing mandatory tasks for mandatory courses asking myself 'are they really making us ****ing do this?'

[NLengr]

Our oral, intraining, and RC exams routinely include questions with a history/physical exam that narrows the differential, and then histology slides to come up with the formal diagnosis. You have to know that stuff, and while you don't need to know it before residency, it helps to be familiar with as much background stuff as possible. It's amazing what I thought was irrelevant but became important, and what I thought was key but completely useless.

 

My specialty on the royal college will simply show you a slide, then expect you to diagnose the condition solely from that.

 

There is also frequently a station where the room is empty and there is just a phone. You need to talk a rural doc who is theoretically snowed in through an emergency scenario.

[meds400]

As much as I love UofC, I have my concerns.

 

Please realize I'm NOT saying this because I have my sights set on UofC too, but because I've actually heard this. I have a friend who is a physician up here in Whitehorse who told me they are less prepared from what he's seen. He was trying to convince me to forget about calgary and go Carib, though.

Oh well.

He and I discussed this a little- I'll paraphrase below. We discussed with respect to what I know about the admissions process and what he knows of the clinical clerks he's seen.

 

I think this may be one of the reasons UofC seems to consider authenticity and life skills more strongly. There's just less chance to build certain clinical skills when you only have 3 years. If they start off by choosing people with strong people skills, though, the students shouldn't have a problem. I work with at-risk youth and I have been a personal trainer. I know you have to be careful with what you say to people when discussing their physical and mental health, and I have certain skills I've picked up through working with all these people. These skills will help me when I get to clerkship immeasurably. I'm not trying to toot my own horn or anything, but this is what we discussed. That's all.

 

I didn't know about the "basic science education" thing- maybe you can clarify? You can PM me if you want.

 

Sooo.... from my limited, anecdotal experience, you do have a valid question and it's worth looking into. I don't think it would change my mind about the program personally, though.

 

 

Just my two cents but if that is the advice this guy is giving, he has no idea what he is talking about...

[mm88]

Just my two cents but if that is the advice this guy is giving, he has no idea what he is talking about...

 

I've actually had lots of people ask me why I didn't want to go to the Caribbean.... They seemed to think it was cheaper and get this: EASIER. Oh boy are they misinformed! Most people don't realize that times have changed and its getting harder and harder to come back from the Caribbean. :/

[meds400]

I've actually had lots of people ask me why I didn't want to go to the Caribbean.... They seemed to think it was cheaper and get this: EASIER. Oh boy are they misinformed! Most people don't realize that times have changed and its getting harder and harder to come back from the Caribbean. :/

 

I know a physician who is currently involved in policy for IMG residencies and I can assure you, it's not only difficult to come to Canada from the caribbean, but at this point, virtually impossible.