Canadian med grads eligible for 1st round US residecy match?

[Guest Lily]

Since canadian med schools are accredited by the LCME I was just wondering if they're eligible...Please response only if you're almost certain. Thanks for your kindness (FYI residency matching in canadian happens before that in the US so this info is kinda very important to me)

[Guest strider2004]

I do believe that Canadian schools are eligible but from what I understand, you have to give up your CaRMS rights to apply for American residency spots. I think both residency programs are legally binding and you can't apply for residency in both Canada and the US. Canadian med students actually apply for US residency through CaRMS.

[Guest Ian Wong]

I believe that you are eligible for the first round match; each year, a small number (under 5 or so) of UBC grads end up going to the States for residency.

 

However, the limiting factor is which program you get matched into. You should check the about web-sites to find out the date for when you match. What I've heard is that if you match into a program, you are automatically withdrawn from both matching streams (CaRMS and NRMP).

 

Therefore, it's crucially important to look at the matching dates for both CaRMS (Canadian) and the NRMP (American) for that year. Since one has an earlier match day than the other (I don't know which), you are more likely to end up matching in that association.

 

Another factor which confuses the issue is that the NRMP also holds an early match (which I believe occurs in January) for many of the competitive specialties such as Derm, Plastics, ENT, etc. This was done so that applicants who went unmatched in the "early match" could still interview for backup programs in the standard match later in the year, eg. Internal Medicine, General Surgery, Family Medicine, etc.

 

So, my current thinking (which may or may not be accurate), is that if you applied for the early match, say in Plastic Surgery, and you matched through the NRMP into a US program in January, you would automatically be withdrawn from both CaRMS and the NRMP standard match. As a result, even if you had applied to Plastic Surgery programs across Canada, you would have no shot of going there because you'd already been matched into a US program, even if you'd prefer to stay in Canada.

 

Therefore, I think it's pretty important to figure out those dates, visit the above websites (accessible through the top of this forum page), and see if I actually know what I talking about!

 

I'm not planning on applying to US residencies, so I haven't looked any of this up. Perhaps if you find something, post a link on this forum so we can all learn something.

 

Ian

UBC, Med 3