Radiology Electives 4 too many?

[waterboy2014]

Hello!

 

I am new to this board and have a few questions to those in the “know”. I have already done 2 radiology electives (diagnostic, and nuclear medicine) at my home school in United States and plan to do 4 more in canada. Is this too much? My goal is to do residency in Canada and I hear that doing electives at different institutions helps out. However, going through the board I also see that doing too many radiology electives is frowned upon by residency directors. What can I do?

Furthermore, I was looking through the Canadian Residency Guide 2011 (http://medical-residency.ca/files/canadian-medical-residency-guide.pdf) and it shows 4 diagnostic radiology positions were not filled. How is this possible? How can I find out which programs are having these open slots?

 

Waterboy

[Lactic Folly]

I'm not sure that a high number of radiology electives is a detriment in itself, except in the case where it appears the candidate is single-minded to the point they have not made a fully informed career choice (this may come through in the personal statement).

 

One option is to discuss your many Canadian electives as evidence of your commitment to returning to Canada.

 

Unfilled positions are generally due to vagaries of the Match, and it's not possible to predict them ahead of time. Although competitiveness varies from year to year, there remain consistently more people applying than spots available.

[NLengr]

Hello!

 

I am new to this board and have a few questions to those in the “know”. I have already done 2 radiology electives (diagnostic, and nuclear medicine) at my home school in United States and plan to do 4 more in canada. Is this too much? My goal is to do residency in Canada and I hear that doing electives at different institutions helps out. However, going through the board I also see that doing too many radiology electives is frowned upon by residency directors. What can I do?

Furthermore, I was looking through the Canadian Residency Guide 2011 (http://medical-residency.ca/files/canadian-medical-residency-guide.pdf) and it shows 4 diagnostic radiology positions were not filled. How is this possible? How can I find out which programs are having these open slots?

 

Waterboy

 

Do as many as possible. Electives are like job interviews. People are more willing to take who they know.

 

Unmatched spots can occur because programs rank too few people due to overconfidence by the program. Also, Quebec classically has spots left in French schools because essentially only quebecers apply for them.

[waterboy2014]

I'm not sure that a high number of radiology electives is a detriment in itself, except in the case where it appears the candidate is single-minded to the point they have not made a fully informed career choice (this may come through in the personal statement).

 

One option is to discuss your many Canadian electives as evidence of your commitment to returning to Canada.

 

Unfilled positions are generally due to vagaries of the Match, and it's not possible to predict them ahead of time. Although competitiveness varies from year to year, there remain consistently more people applying than spots available.

 

Thank you! I definitely have a broad elective set which includes other fields. Yes, and probably will get more competitive as time goes on.

[waterboy2014]

Do as many as possible. Electives are like job interviews. People are more willing to take who they know.

 

Unmatched spots can occur because programs rank too few people due to overconfidence by the program. Also, Quebec classically has spots left in French schools because essentially only quebecers apply for them.

 

 

That is exactly how i feel!

[rmorelan]

Do all radiology for your electives. Don't bother with nucs. Don't bother with further elective diversification. This is assuming you have good evals and letters from your core rotations. Otherwise you may have to do another core to strengthen your app.

 

The spots that went unfilled in 2011 were anomalies. No English imaging spots went unfilled in 2012. I am unsure about the French schools because I am not bilingual and therefore do not pay attention to that.

 

yeah wouldn't be counting any any extra spots out there for Rads in any cycle - that the fact that even happened means they have taking even more steps to make sure it is even less likely to happen again.