Common PGY1

[Guest UofA man]

I was waching a recording of the last CMA general meeting and it seems that the CMA is going to push for a coomon PGY1 year for everyone. How do you think this is going to effect CMG and IMGs? Do you think this will put everyone on a level playing field when since they all go into the same program at the begining?

[Guest Ian Wong]

We had that in Canada, and switched over to this new system in around 1993 or so. I assume that people were able to get their residencies back then as well, so the major contribution to this new system will be that individuals have an additional year of clinical medicine behind them prior to committing to a specialty.

 

Ian

[Guest dakar]

From what I've seen, very superficially, many residencies essentially have the same PGY1 year anway, perhaps with the exception of Pediatrics and a few of the technical specialties like Medical Genetics.

 

From my perspective as a medical student thinking about these upcoming decisions, I would prefer going back to the internship year where one could experience a block of time as a responsible, decision-making physician (ok, at least more responsibility than a clerk...) in the different core rotations. For two reasons - 1. Helps us make a better, more informed decision for residency. 2. Ensures a well-rounded clinical education for all physicians, regardless of their future specialty choice.

 

Surgery, for example, is a 5 year residency. The 1st year is pretty much the same as the 1st year residency for Family Med, ER, Psych, or most other things (maybe a couple of extra months on a surgical rotation, but nothing dramatic, AFAIK). Back when the internship year existed, surgery (and many of the other "5 year" programs) was a 4 year residency. Doesn't seem like much has changed, other than pressuring students to make the choice earlier.

 

that's my totally uninformed opinion.

[Guest Kirsteen]

Hi there,

 

I was speaking to a plastics resident yesterday, at Sunnybrook. She mentioned that the plastics program has recently added another year (although it does not affect those already within a residency stream), making the residency six years as opposed to five. Does this have anything to do with the common year that you refer to, above? Is adding an additional year a common phenomenon among other residencies?

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[Guest UWOMED2005]

Is that the "extra year" of mandatory research that is talked on to a lot of programs at U of T?

[Guest Kirsteen]

Hi there,

 

No, apparently this is not the extra year of research that is normally required for general, orthopaedic or plastic surgery residencies. That research year remains as is, but this extra plastics year sounded like an extra year of training. Perhaps it was an initiative put forth by the College of Physicians & Surgeons? :rolleyes

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[Guest UofA man]

Many understanding was they were not to make the training any longer. Everybody would start off doing the same rotations during the first year and sometime during this year thay would then apply to a speciality. The idea behind this was to make new grads aware of other fields and hopefully increase the number of people wanting to enter family meds, which would then only require one additional year.