Swomen

[Juliaelizabethhorvat]

Hi folks!

 

Just wondering what SWOMEN is referring to... Thanks!

[markov79]

heyo,

 

swomen =

South

Western

Ontario

Medical

Education

Network

 

this is from da website:

 

The Schulich Medicine Admissions Committee's definition of Southwestern Ontario consists of Grey, Bruce, Huron, Perth, Oxford, Middlesex, Lambton, Chatham-Kent, Elgin, Essex and Norfolk Counties. If you attended high school in one of these counties, you would be considered a Southwestern Ontario applicant.

 

all the best

 

further reading ():

https://www.schulich.uwo.ca/admissions/medicine/swomen

http://www.swomen.ca/

[rmorelan]

Hi folks!

 

Just wondering what SWOMEN is referring to... Thanks!

 

south western ontario medical education network

 

it is a geographical area that is serviced by and supports the Schulich School of Medicine. Those that happen to have done high school in that area have an advantage when applying to the school

 

The area covers not a small area - http://www.schulich.uwo.ca/swomen/communitieslist/

[MedSci-PhysMajor]

SWOMEN is one of the stupidest systems. There is no guarantee that just because you are from the boonies you want to stay there. The best students should be admitted....basically if you are SWOMEN you can have a 25 percentile difference in your marks/MCAT score compared to someone who is non-SWOMEN.

 

eg. MCAT for SWOMEN students = 8s across the board

MCAT for non-SWOMEN 11s in two categories and 10 in 1 (can't remember which).

 

Basically it is discrimination that the university prides itself on. Ridiculous.

[uwodesperate]

well a lot of my friends who got accepted to Western as SWOMEN applicants, despite their score of 9-10 in VR, they still had stellar applications and were successful at multiple schools in Canada... so I don't think it is fair for you to say that SWOMEN students are not the "best" students

[uwomedhopeful]

my VR skills are depressingly horrendous... thank god for my swomen status

[GREGtotheHOUSE]

SWOMEN is one of the stupidest systems. There is no guarantee that just because you are from the boonies you want to stay there. The best students should be admitted....basically if you are SWOMEN you can have a 25 percentile difference in your marks/MCAT score compared to someone who is non-SWOMEN.

 

eg. MCAT for SWOMEN students = 8s across the board

MCAT for non-SWOMEN 11s in two categories and 10 in 1 (can't remember which).

 

Basically it is discrimination that the university prides itself on. Ridiculous.

 

 

You're correct in that there is no guarantee. But just for argument sake, do you think that the odds of them staying there would be higher?

[MedSci-PhysMajor]

You're correct in that there is no guarantee. But just for argument sake, do you think that the odds of them staying there would be higher?

 

I don't know that I feel comfortable speculating without seeing any statistics but I think that instead of just allowing students who don't have as high of marks to have a "handicap", they should have better incentive programs for doctors who are in medical school.

 

I actually have first hand experience with a program that works a lot better....one of my uncles is a psychiatrist in a rural area and he was a part of an incentive program that paid for his med school if he practiced there for 5 years. He has now been practicing there for 15+.

 

Another example would be discounted school fees for people who continue to practice out in those areas (eg. if NOSM admits a student and said student agrees to practice in that area for 5 years or whatever). I just think there's a better way than discriminating against people from more urban/suburban settings.

 

Personally I wouldn't want a doctor who had med school handed to them and then ended up choosing to practice in an urban setting..

[uwodesperate]

I don't know that I feel comfortable speculating without seeing any statistics but I think that instead of just allowing students who don't have as high of marks to have a "handicap", they should have better incentive programs for doctors who are in medical school.

 

I actually have first hand experience with a program that works a lot better....one of my uncles is a psychiatrist in a rural area and he was a part of an incentive program that paid for his med school if he practiced there for 5 years. He has now been practicing there for 15+.

 

Another example would be discounted school fees for people who continue to practice out in those areas (eg. if NOSM admits a student and said student agrees to practice in that area for 5 years or whatever). I just think there's a better way than discriminating against people from more urban/suburban settings.

 

Personally I wouldn't want a doctor who had med school handed to them and then ended up choosing to practice in an urban setting..

 

just because an applicant didn't get 11 in verbal that does not mean they had med school handed to them.. i bet if you had swomen status you wouldn't be complaining like this..

 

i am going to be honest with you, being a swomen applicant myself, i will definitely be benefitting from the lower VR cut off at the pre-interview stage.. but that does not mean getting into western meds is a walk in the park for swomen applicants.. even though my gpa is not perfect, i still worked very hard to achieve 3.85 (just a reminder, the same gpa cut offs are used for both swomen and non-swomen applicants), and my score in other sections of the mcat is impeccable, 15 and 14 in BS and PS, respectively..

 

so please stop making it sound like swomen applicants are given free entry pass into western meds, because it certainly is NOT TRUE

 

i am guessing that you feel the same way about other canadian meds schools and their respective regional preferences??

[rmorelan]

You're correct in that there is no guarantee. But just for argument sake, do you think that the odds of them staying there would be higher?

 

oh we don't have to guess about that - we know

[rmorelan]

I am pretty sure I mentioned this before but there is always going to be in a our public education system competing issues of the individual students desire to obtain the education of choice and the community's desire to obtain appropriate end services from those educated. Balance has to be achieved or either students are horribly abused or communities are collecting taxes/resources to pay for something they will never access, and their needs will be not served relative to other areas.

 

SWOMEN is one such attempt at balance. Of course it is not the only one either - most schools have something in place - the only exceptions that immediately spring to mind are Toronto and Queens.

 

Defining the best candidate is a very hard thing to do - for one thing we aren't all that sure that beyond a certainly point that "intelligence" actually helps that much in being a doctor (at what point are you truly smart enough to master the job?). Well I a 95% student better than a 92% student? (actually one reason GPA is defined the way it is to say well no, those students are essentially equally good)

 

I will say that the SWOMEN and non SWOMEN don't seem to have any different abilities once they get in. Everyone seems to be equally skilled, equally successful.

[bordeaux]

SWOMEN is one of the stupidest systems. There is no guarantee that just because you are from the boonies you want to stay there. The best students should be admitted....basically if you are SWOMEN you can have a 25 percentile difference in your marks/MCAT score compared to someone who is non-SWOMEN.

 

eg. MCAT for SWOMEN students = 8s across the board

MCAT for non-SWOMEN 11s in two categories and 10 in 1 (can't remember which).

 

Basically it is discrimination that the university prides itself on. Ridiculous.

 

Sure got your panties in a twist about this don't you. Don't kid yourself into thinking that all the swomen candidates are somehow lacking. I am swomen with a 3.91 and a 39R and I'd venture to say most that I've talked to are well above the regular cut offs. The fact remains if you've grown up in a big city you're likely to have very little interest in practicing in a rural centre so why should the school whose mandate is to eliminate the rural shortage, train the students that statistics dictate will end up back in a big city. Certainly some swomen students are able to take advantage of the lower cutoffs in order to score the interview but after that, it's all up to the individual to sell themselves.

Whether or not it's fair is all relative. It's certainly fair to the populace of chronically under-serviced southwestern Ontario whose tax dollars contribute to paying for those seats and are now, finally, seeing some doctors sticking around rather than heading to Toronto.

[ralk]

I don't know that I feel comfortable speculating without seeing any statistics but I think that instead of just allowing students who don't have as high of marks to have a "handicap", they should have better incentive programs for doctors who are in medical school.

 

I actually have first hand experience with a program that works a lot better....one of my uncles is a psychiatrist in a rural area and he was a part of an incentive program that paid for his med school if he practiced there for 5 years. He has now been practicing there for 15+.

 

Another example would be discounted school fees for people who continue to practice out in those areas (eg. if NOSM admits a student and said student agrees to practice in that area for 5 years or whatever). I just think there's a better way than discriminating against people from more urban/suburban settings.

 

Personally I wouldn't want a doctor who had med school handed to them and then ended up choosing to practice in an urban setting..

 

Unfortunately, the method you cite is not overly effective. Direct financial incentives to get doctors to rural communities (ie paying them to work there for X amount of time), more often than not leads to them staying for their required term and then packing up and leaving.

 

There is an argument to be made that a better formulation of the incentives and requirements would lead to better results - longer time commitments (to force physicians to establish themselves, making it harder to leave) and exposure requirements in med school (to ensure that people know what they're getting into; Western already does this to an extent) would probably be useful. But these plans are expensive, almost prohibitively so, and would also end paying individuals who would work in those areas anyway - to them it's free money.

 

It turns out insisting individuals come from a certain area is just a lot more effective, and a lot less costly. The high requirements for entry into med school reflect high applicant supply more than anything; someone with an 8/8/8 could well be capable of being a fine doctor. At the end of the day, they have to pass the same exams and survive the same training as everyone else.

[rmorelan]

Unfortunately, the method you cite is not overly effective. Direct financial incentives to get doctors to rural communities (ie paying them to work there for X amount of time), more often than not leads to them staying for their required term and then packing up and leaving.

 

There is an argument to be made that a better formulation of the incentives and requirements would lead to better results - longer time commitments (to force physicians to establish themselves, making it harder to leave) and exposure requirements in med school (to ensure that people know what they're getting into; Western already does this to an extent) would probably be useful. But these plans are expensive, almost prohibitively so, and would also end paying individuals who would work in those areas anyway - to them it's free money.

 

It turns out insisting individuals come from a certain area is just a lot more effective, and a lot less costly. The high requirements for entry into med school reflect high applicant supply more than anything; someone with an 8/8/8 could well be capable of being a fine doctor. At the end of the day, they have to pass the same exams and survive the same training as everyone else.

 

I would also say fundamentally ROS and even the financial incentives just result in someone that doesn't actually want to be there to going to an area to work for "the money". What a community really wants is a doctor that actually desires to be there, work hard as a result for that community and fully supports it.

[MedSci-PhysMajor]

just because an applicant didn't get 11 in verbal that does not mean they had med school handed to them.. i bet if you had swomen status you wouldn't be complaining like this..

 

i am going to be honest with you, being a swomen applicant myself, i will definitely be benefitting from the lower VR cut off at the pre-interview stage.. but that does not mean getting into western meds is a walk in the park for swomen applicants.. even though my gpa is not perfect, i still worked very hard to achieve 3.85 (just a reminder, the same gpa cut offs are used for both swomen and non-swomen applicants), and my score in other sections of the mcat is impeccable, 15 and 14 in BS and PS, respectively..

 

so please stop making it sound like swomen applicants are given free entry pass into western meds, because it certainly is NOT TRUE

 

i am guessing that you feel the same way about other canadian meds schools and their respective regional preferences??

 

 

 

Yes I do believe regional preferences should be eliminated and the best applicants taken.

 

Also, that's great that you work hard but so do I and so do other non-SWOMEN students. So why do you get an advantage over me; just because you went to high school in a different region?

 

And do you think that being SWOMEN is what caused you to score lower in these areas? If not then why should the preference be given based on SWOMEN when it is not the causative factor..?

[stryke22]

SWOMEN is one of the stupidest systems. There is no guarantee that just because you are from the boonies you want to stay there. The best students should be admitted....basically if you are SWOMEN you can have a 25 percentile difference in your marks/MCAT score compared to someone who is non-SWOMEN.

 

eg. MCAT for SWOMEN students = 8s across the board

MCAT for non-SWOMEN 11s in two categories and 10 in 1 (can't remember which).

 

Basically it is discrimination that the university prides itself on. Ridiculous.

 

This is incorrect... SWOMEN applicants must have an MCAT of 30 total just like non-SWOMEN applicants. This allows a SWOMEN applicant to get as low as an 8 in a section but they must make up for this by getting a higher score in another section for a total of 30!

[obi]

This is incorrect... SWOMEN applicants must have an MCAT of 30 total just like non-SWOMEN applicants. This allows a SWOMEN applicant to get as low as an 8 in a section but they must make up for this by getting a higher score in another section for a total of 30!

 

He/She knows.

 

The problem, Phys-MedSci, is that they're throwing a wide net and hoping to catch a few. At the end of the day the graduating class is going to be filled with competent doctors. What they hope, though, is that at least a few of those doctors stay at home and continue to live in their communities.

 

A trend that i've noticed though is that people who have grown up in these smaller swomen communities, LOVE, their communities. Not everyone, of course, but enough that once the class graduates you'll probably have more people staying behind than you would have otherwise. Is it a perfect system? Not really. But it IS a system with some semblance of logic behind it. If you're really passionate about it, why not call up dr. tithecott or dean strong and have a chat?

[uwodesperate]

Yes I do believe regional preferences should be eliminated and the best applicants taken.

 

Also, that's great that you work hard but so do I and so do other non-SWOMEN students. So why do you get an advantage over me; just because you went to high school in a different region?

 

And do you think that being SWOMEN is what caused you to score lower in these areas? If not then why should the preference be given based on SWOMEN when it is not the causative factor..?

 

hmm i guess i better score 11+ on VR this summer so that i don't become one of those doctors who had med school just handed to them

[rmorelan]

He/She knows.

 

The problem, Phys-MedSci, is that they're throwing a wide net and hoping to catch a few. At the end of the day the graduating class is going to be filled with competent doctors. What they hope, though, is that at least a few of those doctors stay at home and continue to live in their communities.

 

A trend that i've noticed though is that people who have grown up in these smaller swomen communities, LOVE, their communities. Not everyone, of course, but enough that once the class graduates you'll probably have more people staying behind than you would have otherwise. Is it a perfect system? Not really. But it IS a system with some semblance of logic behind it. If you're really passionate about it, why not call up dr. tithecott or dean strong and have a chat?

 

It really isn't that wide of a net to catch a few - we really do have a lot of people in the end stay in this area

[obi]

It really isn't that wide of a net to catch a few - we really do have a lot of people in the end stay in this area

 

Which only serves to make the argument even stronger. I downplayed the scenario to prevent getting called out on something that I had no numbers to validate

 

Ps. Congrats on Rads!

[DeeDoc]

SWOMEN is one of the stupidest systems. There is no guarantee that just because you are from the boonies you want to stay there. The best students should be admitted....basically if you are SWOMEN you can have a 25 percentile difference in your marks/MCAT score compared to someone who is non-SWOMEN.

 

eg. MCAT for SWOMEN students = 8s across the board

MCAT for non-SWOMEN 11s in two categories and 10 in 1 (can't remember which).

 

Basically it is discrimination that the university prides itself on. Ridiculous.

 

Sounds like you're hating pretty hard...?

 

The MCAT is not 8's across the board. It's a total score of 30 just like everyone else. But the applicant has to make a total score of 30.

 

It seems as though you're bitter or something. The GPA is identical.

 

It all balances out.

[DeeDoc]

He/She knows.

 

The problem, Phys-MedSci, is that they're throwing a wide net and hoping to catch a few. At the end of the day the graduating class is going to be filled with competent doctors. What they hope, though, is that at least a few of those doctors stay at home and continue to live in their communities.

 

A trend that i've noticed though is that people who have grown up in these smaller swomen communities, LOVE, their communities. Not everyone, of course, but enough that once the class graduates you'll probably have more people staying behind than you would have otherwise. Is it a perfect system? Not really. But it IS a system with some semblance of logic behind it. If you're really passionate about it, why not call up dr. tithecott or dean strong and have a chat?

 

I would pay money to listen to this phone conversation.

 

Phys-MedSci seems to think that being SWOMEN automatically means entrance to Western medicine.

[Tee88]

SWOMEN is one of the stupidest systems. There is no guarantee that just because you are from the boonies you want to stay there. The best students should be admitted....basically if you are SWOMEN you can have a 25 percentile difference in your marks/MCAT score compared to someone who is non-SWOMEN.

 

eg. MCAT for SWOMEN students = 8s across the board

MCAT for non-SWOMEN 11s in two categories and 10 in 1 (can't remember which).

 

Basically it is discrimination that the university prides itself on. Ridiculous.

 

Not to be picky but I'm pretty sure the superlative of stupid is most stupid not stupidest; but what do I know? I'm just a swomen .

 

I just find it ironic that at the same time you are complaining about all the hard-work you have had to do, you are also asking about advice on "easy" courses at UWO to bring up your gpa.

 

I think in this stage of the game there is little difference between the competence of a MCAT 30, 3.7 gpa applicant and someone with an MCAT 35+ and 3.9+ gpa. During the interview it all comes out in the wash based on your experiences. Being SWOMEN is not a cut and dry automatic in either! You still have to earn your invite!

 

The fact is there are WAY too many qualified applicants and this is UWO's way of cutting down on the interview invites (by having hard cut-offs).

 

SWOMEN individuals are indeed more likely to stay as members of SWO and explore rural care vs. bigger city applicants. It ultimately comes down to who can relate best to the rural community's health care needs? A top-notch big-city applicant with no vested interest in rural communities or an average SWOMEN applicant with a genuine interest in the community served. Both will receive the same medical training and come out with similar proficiency in medical school.

 

Western isn't the only school to give preference to applicants. UBC, McGill, U of Ottawa just to name a few; give certain preferences.

[rmorelan]

Which only serves to make the argument even stronger. I downplayed the scenario to prevent getting called out on something that I had no numbers to validate

 

Ps. Congrats on Rads!

 

Thanks Should be fun!

[MedSci-PhysMajor]

Not to be picky but I'm pretty sure the superlative of stupid is most stupid not stupidest; but what do I know? I'm just a swomen .

 

I just find it ironic that at the same time you are complaining about all the hard-work you have had to do, you are also asking about advice on "easy" courses at UWO to bring up your gpa.

 

I think in this stage of the game there is little difference between the competence of a MCAT 30, 3.7 gpa applicant and someone with an MCAT 35+ and 3.9+ gpa. During the interview it all comes out in the wash based on your experiences. Being SWOMEN is not a cut and dry automatic in either! You still have to earn your invite!

 

The fact is there are WAY too many qualified applicants and this is UWO's way of cutting down on the interview invites (by having hard cut-offs).

 

SWOMEN individuals are indeed more likely to stay as members of SWO and explore rural care vs. bigger city applicants. It ultimately comes down to who can relate best to the rural community's health care needs? A top-notch big-city applicant with no vested interest in rural communities or an average SWOMEN applicant with a genuine interest in the community served. Both will receive the same medical training and come out with similar proficiency in medical school.

 

Western isn't the only school to give preference to applicants. UBC, McGill, U of Ottawa just to name a few; give certain preferences.

 

First of all, I am not complaining about my hard work. If you look back, that was someone else and I was merely asking why her hard work should count for more than mine just because she has SWOMEN status. Second, let's get real...everyone takes bird courses to lighten their load - SWOMEN or not so that point is irrelevant.

 

I do understand the need for more doctors in rural areas, I just think there are better ways to do it than discriminating against people from urban or suburban areas.