Current Medical Students-Electives

[Guest MDmmmsure]

I just have a quick question for current UofA medical students......how many possible weeks of electives can be taken before the Carms application is due? I know that the minimum is 13 weeks of electives.....I am just wondering how many weeks you could possibly add.....

 

Thanks

 

Joe

[Guest fluidity2]

Hey Joe

 

You can possibly add on another 12 weeks if you do electives throughout the summer between 2nd and 3rd year. You can also do electives between 1st and 2nd year but some people discourage it because you will have few clinical skills. One con of doing a full 25 weeks is no holidays - many 3rd years who did not take holidays ended up burning out early and regretted it (although I do plan on doing 4 weeks next summer, but I will still have 8 weeks to travel/relax). One thing to remember and plan for is that the minimum 13 weeks may not be before cARMS. How it ends up working in 3rd year is that you get 8 weeks to do a minimum of 5 weeks electives (so 3 weeks max for holidays) and then you will get anywhere between 2 and 8 weeks to do your 4th year electives before cARMS and then the remaining weeks after cARMS applications are due.