CaRMS match success from US schools?

[Guest Lara F]

With all the CaRMS stats on this board, I was wondering if by any chance someone might know how many Canadians attending US schools applied in the first round and matched. Probably not but I'd definitely appreciate the info! Thanks.

[Guest Ian Wong]

Unfortunately, CaRMS hasn't released any of that information in the past. You could try contacting them here:

 

www.carms.ca/about/about_index.htm

 

Canadian Resident Matching Service

2283 St. Laurent Blvd., Suite 110

Ottawa ON K1G 5A2

 

Telephone: (613) 237-0075

Fax: (613) 563-2860

carmsmail@carms.ca

 

As well, this year the US match occurred before the CaRMS match, so any applicants who applied to residencies in both countries, and ranked programs in both countries, would have most likely gotten into the US. The two match organizations, CaRMS and the NRMP, are coordinated, whichever match occurs first has priority over you. If you matched first into the US via the NRMP, CaRMS will be notified, and your CaRMS application will be withdrawn.

 

It is likely that in future years, the CaRMS match will occur before the US match (the reason for the switch this year was due to delays from last year's SARS epidemic), in which case if you rank Canadian programs and match into one, you'd be withdrawn from the US residency application process.

 

As a US student, you might be a bit of an unknown quantity to most Canadian residency program directors; it would probably be worth contacting them now to see what you can do to bolster your application (ie. doing electives in Canada). Contact info for the Canadian residency program directors can be found here:

 

www.carms.ca/programdir/program_index.htm

 

Ian

[Guest Lara F]

Thanks Ian. With the NRMP match being earlier I imagine virtually no US grads matched with CaRMS. But hopefully that'll be reversed again next year.

 

My main problems with returning are definitely debt (around 200K USD) and not coming from a "known" high-tier US school. So it's probably on the unlikely side that I'll end up returning, but I'd still like to try. I'm sure it doesn't help either that I'd really only want to live in Montreal, Vancouver or southern Ontario (preferably Toronto, but I'd be open to the other schools).

[Guest Ian Wong]

I think as you progress further in med school, and start homing in on particular specialty, the competitiveness for that specialty will start to dictate your actions. Once you know which specialty you are going for, you can also start the process of figuring out whether a Canadian residency allows you to sit for the corresponding US board exam (allowing you to be board-certified and employable in either country), or whether a US residency will allow you to ever become Canadian board certified.

 

Some Canadian residencies (ie. ENT, Neurosurgery), aren't recognized by the US boards, so if you do a Canadian ENT residency, you aren't allowed to practice in the US. Similarly, some US residencies (ie. General Peds, General Internal Medicine, Anesthesiology, Ophthalmology, Derm, Emerg Medicine, etc) are shorter than they are in Canada, which means that you might not be allowed to practice in Canada.

 

Once you figure out your specialty of interest, you can start working on the above. The best case scenario would be to figure out which country's residency programs in that specialty would allow you to become board-certified in both the US and Canada. Then you can pick and choose which country you want to work in.

 

I've heard that the clinical exposure at Temple is really good due to it being a county hospital, and the uh, rather high rate of pathology in the surrounding neighborhoods.

 

Ian

[Guest moo]

You should try to do some electives in Canada and really get some good letters. I don't think it would be too difficult to match into something like FP but everything else might be a little hard (including medicine). I have heard of people matching into Canada from my school (one girl matched peds at UT) but the majority of Canadians who study in the US stay in the US either due to personal reasons or as you stated, financial reasons. Another option would be to live in Canada and work in the US (like living in Vancouver, working in Bellingham or living in Windsor and working in Detroit) if you are really desperate to be in Canada.