University of Toronto family med residency program

[Guest desiguy8179]

As per Carms info,UofT FM program has now 82 residency spots this yr,I think which should make it largest FM program in North America or may be largest residency program regardless of speciality.Is it a positive thing or negative,in the sense that individual attention or educational exp. may be compromised in such a big program.So do you think one should pay attention to no. of residents in a program.

Thanks

[Guest Ian Wong]

Just for kicks, I went looking at US residency programs here.

 

For Internal Medicine, the largest entering class I could find was at the University of Washington (in Seattle), with an entering class of 74. Interestingly enough, their Family Medicine residency only takes in 8 per year. The discrepancy is that there's a lot of smaller hospitals in Washington state with their own Family Med residencies; in the US, you don't necessarily need to be university or university-affliated hospital to have a residency program.

 

Anyway, to get back to your question, I think there's going to be positives and negatives to a huge class like that, just like there are differences to bigger vs smaller classes in med school.

 

The pros for a bigger class include potentially more diversity, a wider range of backgrounds within your classmates, generally more opportunities for research or other academic things (considering that your faculty by definition must have more resources than a significantly smaller program), likely a larger number of preceptors/hospitals/clinics to attend, likely significantly easier to find coverage for yourself so that swapping call shifts/taking maternity leave is less burdensome on your fellow classmates, etc.

 

Cons would include probably less one on one time and less time to dedicate to an individual preceptor or location (in a smaller program, you might be more fixed in your number of locations/preceptors, compared with a big program where you're more likely to move around).

 

I think the best thing to do, as generic advice, is to try to talk with other applicants and current residents before and during the interview days when you are visiting each program prior to the CaRMS match. Every applicant has individual needs and goals, and how well your requirements mesh with what the program offers should determine where that program falls on your rank list.

 

Many people have a geographical tie that makes certain programs more preferred than others. Others may be looking for a rural exposure to maximize hands-on time with patients where you aren't competing for patients against residents from other specialties. Some people would favour a smaller program to get to know your all classmates well, and to build stronger, long-term ties with preceptors. I'm sure U of T FM would be a phenomenal fit for certain individuals, and yet a terrible fit for others (based on size, location, geography, patient population, etc). It's all about what you want out of a program.

 

Ian

[Guest UWOMED2005]

I don't know that much about U of T's family medicine program - I wasn't that interested in urban family medicine programs when I applied.

 

From speaking with friends who matched to U of T this past year, however, my understanding is that U of T's program is broken up between a number of sites - so it isn't the issue it might seem. I was actually quite impressed. . . with what measly 3rd hand info I received.

 

That's all I know. Sorry I couldn't be of more help - feel more than free to seek out some more official info!

[Guest jmh2005]

UofTs numbers are deceiving. As UWO said, their numbers are really broken up over many sites with very different programs. UofT really is a bunch of different programs run by UofT technically, but each is hospital based...each hospital site has a very different schedule and way of learning even. Some programs do a horizontal program where you do 3 half days a week doing FM no matter what rotation you are on...while others have dedicated month blocks to FM.

 

UofT has a great website on their programs and different sites, which can be accessed from http://www.carms.ca and go to UofT Family Medicine and there is a link you can follow that has videos for each of the sites.

 

I think that despite the seemly large number, it really is not like that, I think that you can go through the whole two years and not meet some fellow residents at different sites...

 

I thought that they had a decent set up...if you wanted to live in Toronto that is...good luck