To Carolyn, Ian and anyone else in the final year...

[Guest sally2001]

If you don't mind sharing, how did the match go? Did you get your 1st choice? In any case, congratulations on finding out...

[Guest Carolyn]

Hi Sally,

 

Thanks for your interest. While I got my first choice (UofT Emerg) it was a pretty horrid year for the CaRMS match. Some are calling it "the CARMAGE"... It will be interesting to see what the fall out is but there were extremely high unmatch rates across the country with some as high as 10% of the class.

 

Our match rate was good at McMaster with only one going unmatched (and apparently he changed his mind from surgery to family so didn't even rank anything - but that is just rumour at this stage)... However, I do know of a few people who back up their specialty choices with Family Medicine that in the end were matched to Family Medicine. Perhaps at other schools there wasn't such a push to back up the specialties as there is at McMaster. I still don't think we have 50% going into family medicine like last year - more like 35% (like previous years) -- but I'm only guessing from last night's party.

 

The final statistics should come out in April some time.

 

I think I just had a lot of luck on my side this year!

[Guest aneliz]

The match has been kind of a sore point with many final year students this year and took people a little by surprise in the way it unfolded. There were more students in the match this year then ever before (rumoured to have been more students then there were residency positions) due to the political climate in Quebec, the IMG issue and the fact that Canadians educated at American schools were allowed into the first round. As a result, there are more 'unmatched' students then there have been in a long time (3 times the number of unmatched students there were last year) with upwards of 10% of some graduating classes currently unmatched. To add to the stress, the positions remaining for the second round have a substantially different distribution then they have had historically. If you want to check out the seats available for second round, look at the CaRMS website. Family medicine took an even bigger hit then last year, with LOTS of family positions left over...but pretty much everything else went in the first round (including ALL of the seats in historically less competitive specialties like internal med). Hopefully we can get summaries of how each individual school's graduating class did up here soon.

 

This year's match has been a bit scary seeing as the first wave of the expanded class sizes in Ontario won't graduate until NEXT year...I think most of us are worried about what is eventually going to happen to us. Medical school enrollment in Ontario has increased by 30%...it is going to be increased in BC too...and yet there are not really any more residency spots in place to deal with this yet. Bottom line: we need more residency spots...but of course how many, where and in what specialty is entirely in the control of the government....

[Guest faqir9]

a BIT scary?! I am just flabbergasted by the open vacancies. If you don't want to go into FM then whatever it is that you are, it is royally that. I bet there are indeed an awful lot of really pissed students. I would be.

[Guest peachy]

Congratulations Carolyn!!

[Guest sally2001]

Carolyn,

 

congratulations that is so awesome!! i'm sure it's a great relief to know you got into your #1 choice and you'll be able to look forward with happy anticipation

 

Aneliz,

thanks for the insight!! it strikes me as really illogical to not increase the # of residency positions while increasing the # of med school seats, esp considering the shortage of doctors and the difficulty in retaining canadian graduates from going to the US (or any other place). i'm sure (well i hope) by the time you reach that stage, there will be corrective measures in place

 

thanks to both of you for the replies!