Queen's vs Western?

[MrsSnrub]

Pros and cons? They were both so amazing at interview weekends. I have no idea what I want to specialize in but I want at least the chance to go into a more competitive specialty (i.e. have there be sufficient specialists in the city to shadow/do research with).

 

I'm also interested in how they teach clinical skills...I know Queen's starts really early and you have skills sessions every week or something?

[thatonekid]

I can't speak to Western, but Queen's matches well to competitive specialties. Some people say that there's a disadvantage to going to a smaller school/city, and while this can be argued, there are also advantages. At Queen's, it's super easy to make connections with someone in a specialty that you're interested in. I don't know of anyone who's been unhappy with the specialists to choose from when trying to arrange an observership. Also, there are research opportunities at every school; you just have to seek them out.

 

As for the clinical skills program, it's one of the highlights of Queen's Medicine and has been recognized as being excellent. You start with clinical skills in the first week of med school and you have a session every week (generally all afternoon). You can also start doing observerships within the first month of med school, and it's nice that the doctors will let you go in and see the patient by yourself to take a history and you know how to do it. After you learn the skills of taking a history, you move onto the physical exam. By the end of the year, you'll know how to do a complete history and physical (with a few exceptions). Queen's definitely prepares their students well in this regard.

[BigM]

Pros and cons? They were both so amazing at interview weekends. I have no idea what I want to specialize in but I want at least the chance to go into a more competitive specialty (i.e. have there be sufficient specialists in the city to shadow/do research with).

 

I'm also interested in how they teach clinical skills...I know Queen's starts really early and you have skills sessions every week or something?

 

Both are great schools and both produce great doctors.

 

UWO serves a larger catchment area and has a larger hospital system so you will probably find some services/departments that don't exist at Queens. That said, I wouldn't really expect Queens graduates to have a harder time landing competitive specialities.

 

At UWO you start with clinical training right away as well, but the first few months are an introduction to interviewing. For the most part your pre-clerkship clinical skills are weekly 3 hour sessions (probably very similar to Queens)

 

Your academic experience will be pretty similar between the two schools. Your preference for city and location should probably get a fair bit of weighting in this decision.

[cardiomegaly]

I remember one of my residents who did med school at Queens said they don't start their clinical clerkship till January of 3rd year. Thus they spend less time on rotation than Western? Personally, the quality of clerkship rotations and timing of electives is something in retrospect I would have paid attention to more than the preclinical education (most are very similar). Western is known across the country for the strength of their clerkship years, the visiting elective students I've seen have been quite strong. That being said, the residents I've worked with who are from Queens are awesome and knew their stuff.

 

Anyone can comment on this?

[thatonekid]

I remember one of my residents who did med school at Queens said they don't start their clinical clerkship till January of 3rd year. Thus they spend less time on rotation than Western? Personally, the quality of clerkship rotations and timing of electives is something in retrospect I would have paid attention to more than the preclinical education (most are very similar). Western is known across the country for the strength of their clerkship years, the visiting elective students I've seen have been quite strong. That being said, the residents I've worked with who are from Queens are awesome and knew their stuff.

 

Anyone can comment on this?

That was part of the old curriculum. The class of 2016 will be the 3rd class with the new curriculum, where there are 2 full years of clerkship. Queen's clerkship is now comparable with the other med schools in Canada.

 

The lack of clerkship experience is one of the misconceptions that Queen's is working hard to clear up!

[cardiomegaly]

Thanks TOK! Good for everyone to know

[ellorie]

UWO's clinical skills teaching has been good so far, in my experience.

 

We spend 3 hours/week on it (one afternoon). The first 6 weeks and the last I think 8 weeks are basic/advanced interviewing and physical exam skills is in the middle.

 

In interviewing, we watch each other do histories on standardized patients who have various problems and personalities and give each other feedback and get feedback from our preceptors. Physical exam skills is a different theme every couple of weeks - we cycle through cardio, resp, MSK, neuro, vital signs, abdominal exam, eyes/nose/mouth, all that stuff. At the end there is a mini-OSCE where you demonstrate your skills to your preceptor.

 

Some preceptors also take their students into the hospital some afternoons to examine some real findings - my guy was a cardiologist, so he took us to see some heart patients when we were doing that part of the exam.

 

In second year, I think we will be in the hospital more and there will be more specialized skills like geriatrics, pediatrics and psychiatry clinical skills.

 

Observership opportunities are good here too - I've done a bunch across the board.

 

I ended up choosing my medical school more on gut feeling than anything else - all the schools in Canada are great and they tend to do things fairly similarly. You will probably be happy either place.

 

Personally I think that most of the clinical skills learning happens in clerkship anyway, and Western is known for the strength of its clerkship years.

[howdypartner]

I ended up choosing my medical school more on gut feeling than anything else - all the schools in Canada are great and they tend to do things fairly similarly. You will probably be happy either place.

 

^^This

Pick the school/city or town that you liked best. The two schools are probably much more similar than they are different. London is a bigger city which means it likely has way more specialists/more opportunities. I do love the small class size offered at Queens though.

This is very relevant...stolen from fb group

Something to consider is the clerkship structure. From what I understand, Western has all your core rotations in third year and your fourth year is exclusively for electives with a pre-residency boot camp at some point in time. Queen's on the other hand has two or three core rotations before your first set of electives and then some more core before electives (basically a core/electives sort of schedule). Both systems have pro's and con's but I think it's worthwhile to do more research into the merits of each. Another thing to think about is what specialty you want to go into, I realize it's quite early and you just got into med school so why on earth would you be thinking about matching....BUT that being said, Queen's has one dermatologist in all of Kingston and surrounding area. So, if you think that's what you're set on, you would be better served at Western.

I remember earlier reading about Western's set up of electives after and how its better because you already have all that experience from your core rotations so can really impress everyone during your electives