Q&A With Mac Med 2015

[Rext]

Hi Applicants for the Class of 2016!

 

My name is Rext, but most people actually know me as...Perry! I am the Class President for the Class of 2015 and I spoke to you briefly about poop and great doctors at your interview weekend. It was great meeting all of you these past few weekends - the Class of 2016 is gonna be awesome! I know how intimidating it can be to ask a question in front of an audience and that its hard to think after the MMI (believe me, I know. I was a mindless zombie for at least two weeks after).

 

And so, a few classmates and I decided to make ourselves available to you to answer any questions you may come up with now to help you decide whether or not Mac is for you. Feel free to post in this thread with any questions or PM me. We will be checking this thread occasionally and will respond asap.

 

For the sake of keeping this thread clean, please only post questions below. If you wish to discuss anything or comment, please use PMs instead.

[123izme]

Hi Applicants for the Class of 2016!

 

My name is Rext, but most people actually know me as...Perry! I am the Class President for the Class of 2015 and I spoke to you briefly about poop and great doctors at your interview weekend. It was great meeting all of you these past few weekends - the Class of 2016 is gonna be awesome! I know how intimidating it can be to ask a question in front of an audience and that its hard to think after the MMI (believe me, I know. I was a mindless zombie for at least two weeks after).

 

And so, a few classmates and I decided to make ourselves available to you to answer any questions you may come up with now to help you decide whether or not Mac is for you. Feel free to post in this thread with any questions or PM me. We will be checking this thread occasionally and will respond asap.

 

For the sake of keeping this thread clean, please only post questions below. If you wish to discuss anything or comment, please use PMs instead.

 

Hi Perry,

 

I want to thank you for creating this thread -- it's definitely very thoughtful and nice of you to volunteer your time to answer our questions. During your speech at my interview, you said that with PBL you had to learn how to be comfortable with not knowing things... I was wondering what you meant by it. I am sorry if I misheard you!

[BAMFtastic]

Hi Perry,

 

I want to thank you for creating this thread -- it's definitely very thoughtful and nice of you to volunteer your time to answer our questions. During your speech at my interview, you said that with PBL you had to learn how to be comfortable with not knowing things... I was wondering what you meant by it. I am sorry if I misheard you!

 

I am going to try and answer this, eventhough I am not Perry. My assumption is that people want to know the right answer, and become overwhelmed when faced by a question which is outside their relm of answering. Especially as A+ students (which most premeds are) you become accustomed to "knowing everything". Taking a step back, knowing your limitations, and admitting a lack of knowledge is humbling, but hard to do. I think he realized his limitations, has become comfortable with them, and is learning how to have less of them.

 

Maybe I am wrong.

[NutritionRunner]

I want to thank you for creating this thread -- it's definitely very thoughtful and nice of you to volunteer your time to answer our questions. During your speech at my interview, you said that with PBL you had to learn how to be comfortable with not knowing things... I was wondering what you meant by it. I am sorry if I misheard you!

 

I'm not in medicine at Mac, but I have had experience with PBL. In PBL, you never know when you've "finished." You never know all that you could possibly know about the particular problem or case you were studying. There is always more you could learn, know, investigate, etc. But you obviously only have so much time, so you have to be comfortable with accepting that you don't know everything about that particular case or problem. You also have to learn how to focus on what the important parts of the case or problem are, without getting bogged down in unimportant details. At the same time, you have to realize that some of the small details will be important. It can be a real challenge.

 

Lots of people are really uncomfortable with the "not knowing" or "not being able to finish" a problem or case study. They want the answers. They want a definitive result. But in health care (I'm in dietetics at the moment) you don't always have all the answers, or all the solutions. You have to focus on the most important problem first, and decide what will give you the "most bang for your buck," coupled with what the patient can actually *do* (which is really important in terms of lifestyle changes).

 

From what I've gathered from Mac's PBL approach, it's similar to what I've experienced in PBL as described above.

[Big Bird]

Do Mac Meds have a med-specific lounge? Can we get key cards/access to the health sci lounge?

[benge88]

Yes, there is a med specific lounge, with keycard access. Right now, it's nothing fancy, but a renovation for the area has been approved, and should begin shortly

[Big Bird]

Yes, there is a med specific lounge, with keycard access. Right now, it's nothing fancy, but a renovation for the area has been approved, and should begin shortly

 

Cool! Thanks for taking the time to post. Will the renovation be done by August?

[mdreaming]

One of my supervisors said that anatomy lectures at McMaster medical school are optional/elective. If so, how do you guys approach learning anatomy/physiology with PBL?

 

“with PBL you had to learn how to be comfortable with not knowing things”

I don’t understand why you would want to be comfortable with not knowing things. Being uncomfortable would only motivate you to learn about that topic/promote self-directed learning (a skill important in pbl).

 

From what I heard from my friends at mac, the the health sci lounge, med students have a small room within the entire lounge and the lounge is shared by nursing, biochem, health sci (health scis mainly use it) and midwifery students.

[holiday1001]

I'm not in medicine at Mac, but I have had experience with PBL.

...

From what I've gathered from Mac's PBL approach, it's similar to what I've experienced in PBL as described above.

be careful before equating your previous 'PBL' experience with mac's PBL. even the pbl from health sci is not that similar to our pbl. personally, I had two courses with PBL components in Queen's and it was not similar in any fashion at all. some other med schools have 'CBL' (case-based), which again is nothing like our pbl.

 

a major reason is that pbl is often supplemental, but forms the core of our learning.

[holiday1001]

One of my supervisors said that anatomy lectures at McMaster medical school are optional/elective. If so, how do you guys approach learning anatomy/physiology with PBL?

 

“with PBL you had to learn how to be comfortable with not knowing things”

I don’t understand why you would want to be comfortable with not knowing things. Being uncomfortable would only motivate you to learn about that topic/promote self-directed learning (a skill important in pbl).

 

From what I heard from my friends at mac, the the health sci lounge, med students have a small room within the entire lounge and the lounge is shared by nursing, biochem, health sci (health scis mainly use it) and midwifery students.

 

You schedule private sessions with the anatomists (either by yourself or with a group of classmates). Or in the self-directed approach, go into the lab yourself, or even just in your preparation for tutorial, spend more time on anatomy. That's the beauty of self-directed learning- you choose what to prioritize what your time goes towards (sometimes that happens to be **DELETED**..)

 

For 'not knowing', you will never know everything in medicine. it's too broad, too much information, but you have to be ok with that, and knowing that one day, you will get to learning it. focus on what's important now. or you can try to learn it 'all' (of course you won't succeed) and then burn out. for instance, when you prep for tutorial, you might use a textbook as a resource, but sometimes, that textbook is very detailed, so you have to be comfortable with skipping some sections, or just simply not understanding what entire paragraphs mean, because they are just too complicated for you.

 

We have two rooms behind that door. I think we fit around 30 people in the second room at one point.

[trojjanhorse]

How long did it take you guys to get comfortable with the city? (I suppose this is directed to someone who did not apply from Hamilton.

[Applemanv3]

Hi all,

 

I urge you to make use of this thread as I don't remember something of this sort being on PM101 in the past. Thanks Rext/Perry for getting this running!

 

Q: Anatomy/Physiology with PBL - how?

A: Ok let's start at the beginning. Mac is about providing us with plenty of resources (human and otherwise), excellent access to them, and providing support when we experience obstacles. Most of my class is extremely happy with most of the aspects of our experience from what I have heard.

Anatomy does have optional/elective components, but as you may expect from any decent opinion on medical learning, all doctors need to know a certain amount of anatomy. The anatomy we choose to delve into during PBL will vary depending on group consensus, tutor input, and time available. Structured anatomy sessions are particularly useful for ensuring we are made aware of what the basic pure anatomical and clinical anatomical requirements of us are. Apart from these, we can set up our own small group sessions guided by anatomists and I personally have found these excellent. That said, if you want to go into an anatomy-heavy discipline, you should put in as much extra time and work on your own into anatomy as you see fit.

 

Q: What do you mean "with PBL you had to learn how to be comfortable with not knowing things"?

A: PBL is a group-learning approach with objective setting as the means of deciding what to cover during each 3-hour tutorial. Therefore:

a. Everyone will have to participate and have a say - different people will have different backgrounds, aims, expectations, and expertise.

b. 3 hours is a short time in the grand scheme of things, so you can't cover everything as a group. Thus, the pacing, depth, and overall group dynamics of tutorial will have certain limitations.

Until you try a Mac Med PBL session, you cannot quite conceptualize what we mean when we say you have to be comfortable not knowing everything. Picture this: when you cover cardiomyopathies, you may cover aspects of topics that one will learn anytime between pre-clerkship all the way to 5th year of residency. Not all of it will necessarily be important in the "here and now" of things. So one needs to be able to draw the line somewhere as to what one has to know now and perhaps cover in greater depth later. This becomes even more apparent over the course of the Medical Foundations (MFs) and as the amount of stuff to know builds up. So, as one resident and several attendings have put it to me: "You'll never have a day when you know it all". The essence of Mac is to teach us to become "understanding" of this fact and then learn how to access information we don't know and appropriately factor new information into our decision-making.

 

Long answers, sorry, but I wanted to speak out my mind the best I could. These are somewhat still my opinions and so please feel free to seek out more information from others.

 

Keep using this thread and we'll do what we can to assuage your doubts, apprehensions, and fears

 

Edit: Sorry if I repeated what holiday1001 has said. I type slowly

[Applemanv3]

How long did it take you guys to get comfortable with the city? (I suppose this is directed to someone who did not apply from Hamilton.

It took me at least a month or more to get comfortable in Hamilton. This was my first time living away from home (GTA) and I wasn't completely used to the uniqueness of Hamilton (*cough* one-way streets among other things).

 

Now, though, I am very happy and quite love this city. Not all of it, but the areas I love are enough to keep me happy. Moreover, I am happy enough with Hamilton that I wouldn't mind doing my residency here (if I get in). Also, getting to make awesome new friends in medicine helped me adjust to my new weekday city (I still go home for the weekends...because I can).

[NutritionRunner]

be careful before equating your previous 'PBL' experience with mac's PBL. even the pbl from health sci is not that similar to our pbl. personally, I had two courses with PBL components in Queen's and it was not similar in any fashion at all. some other med schools have 'CBL' (case-based), which again is nothing like our pbl.

 

a major reason is that pbl is often supplemental, but forms the core of our learning.

 

That's why I said it was "similar" not that it was identical. I guess I should have added this is what I've gathered from talking to McMaster medical students, as well as students at Mac in other health care disciplines (ie. physical therapy). If what I said was inaccurate, then I apologize. But again, from what the Mac med students told me, their PBL is very similar to the PBL I've had as part of my dietetics training.

[mdreaming]

Okay thanks for the reply!

 

Structured anatomy sessions are particularly useful for ensuring we are made aware of what the basic pure anatomical and clinical anatomical requirements of us are. Apart from these, we can set up our own small group sessions guided by anatomists and I personally have found these excellent. That said, if you want to go into an anatomy-heavy discipline, you should put in as much extra time and work on your own into anatomy as you see fit.

 

What happens if you don't know what discipline (ie. residency) you want to go into during your pre-clerkship years? (ie. then you struggle with anatomy during residency that is anatomy-heavy)

 

I apologize for these random questions. I don't know much about the medical schools in Ontario.

[ralk]

Hello Mac 2015 students!

 

During the post-interview presentation, Perry/Rext did a great job convincing me that there is time to engage in numerous extra-curricular activities despite the shortened pre-clinical time. I was wondering if I could get some more information on what kind of activities are available. In particular, I'm looking at the feasibility of longer-term projects involving research, clinical practice, or community outreach, especially at the regional campuses (Waterloo especially, though comments for the Niagara campus are appreciated too!)

 

Thank you to all the McMaster 2015s who are participating in this thread, it's great to get information directly from the source!

[tberry3]

It took me at least a month or more to get comfortable in Hamilton. This was my first time living away from home (GTA) and I wasn't completely used to the uniqueness of Hamilton (*cough* one-way streets among other things).

 

Now, though, I am very happy and quite love this city. Not all of it, but the areas I love are enough to keep me happy. Moreover, I am happy enough with Hamilton that I wouldn't mind doing my residency here (if I get in). Also, getting to make awesome new friends in medicine helped me adjust to my new weekday city (I still go home for the weekends...because I can).

 

Out of curiosity (and acknowledging that everyone has different tastes), can you elaborate a bit on some of those areas? I know basically nothing about Hamilton so I don't have a lot of direction as far as which parts of town I should focus on when I have a chance to explore and spend some time there.

 

EDIT: And on that same note... are there any specific areas that should really be avoided when looking for a place to live in town?

[Big Bird]

Have any of you rejected offers at U of T? I'm curious if you have any thoughts on your choice now that you are a year or so into the Mac program.

[mdreaming]

Out of curiosity (and acknowledging that everyone has different tastes), can you elaborate a bit on some of those areas? I know basically nothing about Hamilton so I don't have a lot of direction as far as which parts of town I should focus on when I have a chance to explore and spend some time there.

 

 

MACINSIDERS has really great info about the McMaster and Hamilton community.

 

http://www.macinsiders.com/showthread.php/whats-hamilton-really-like-29666.html

 

 

 

 

Cheers,

 

F.C

[Applemanv3]

Okay thanks for the reply!

 

 

 

What happens if you don't know what discipline (ie. residency) you want to go into during your pre-clerkship years? (ie. then you struggle with anatomy during residency that is anatomy-heavy)

 

I apologize for these random questions. I don't know much about the medical schools in Ontario.

Simplest tip I can share: learn anatomy as if you will enter an anatomy-heavy specialty. Don't leave it for later. As Dr. Wainman often tells us, we are pre-clerks now for a reason. Life only gets extremely busier over the years, so there is no excuse not to have a good foundation in Anatomy during pre-clerkship, regardless of what one may want to do for residency. Also, even those of us who think we know what we want to do may suddenly change our minds.

 

N.B. Most of us do not come into medicine knowing what we want to do, so for all of you who have no idea, that's totally ok. Just be enthusiastic and use horizontal electives to explore areas. For those that know right away, keep your minds open.

[Applemanv3]

Out of curiosity (and acknowledging that everyone has different tastes), can you elaborate a bit on some of those areas? I know basically nothing about Hamilton so I don't have a lot of direction as far as which parts of town I should focus on when I have a chance to explore and spend some time there.

 

EDIT: And on that same note... are there any specific areas that should really be avoided when looking for a place to live in town?

I can only speak from my last 6 months of living here: I love the Westdale community, Locke Street (from Main street and below/south), and some pockets surrounding Juravinski Hospital. That said, there are tons of great areas in Hamilton. Others can speak more to this.

 

Areas to be aware of: Downtown Hamilton. Nothing overtly problematic, but it's an area to read up on. That said, plenty of 2nd years and even 1st years live downtown. As long as you get to know the community and how to get around safely, there shouldn't be an issue. Also, I believe community is an extension of the individual, so I don't dislike any places because that would reflect poorly on my impression of myself. I'd like to think I can make a positive impact on my surroundings.

[aryastark]

What would you do in terms of anatomy if you don't know which specialty you want to go into?

I would say many, if not most students are in this boat, especially for the first few months. A lot of people have found it useful to do surgery horizontals early to determine whether this might be something they want to pursue. If they like it, they might realize they need to put more emphasis on anatomy. If you're really unsure, it would probably be best to over-emphasize it than not have enough of it.

 

EC's

At the beginning of the year there is an opportunity to run for a student council position, as well as a lottery for various committee positions. We often receive emails for available research positions, and of course you can look for those yourself. You can also choose to do research for blocks during clerkship. Horizontal electives can be set up at any campus or outside community. These can vary from a one time elective for 8 hours to an ongoing weekly elective for months. Basically you just contact the department or physician directly to set it up. Depending on the physician, the horizontal may involve shadowing a physician, seeing patients yourself, or even participating in surgeries.

 

Hamilton as a city

Westdale is an area near campus, and is where most people live first year. Locke St is more east, and is kind of where downtown starts. Its known for having lots of shops and restaurants. Hess village and Augusta St are popular areas for going out.

For living, most people live either in Westdale or downtown. Westdale is very close to campus and is convenient for first year. Although, I had all of my tutorials at hospitals during MF1 and MF2 and was on campus once or twice a week at most. Downtown is convenient because it is in the middle of campus/ MUMC and the other three hospitals, so they are all within a 10-minute drive. I chose this route because I didn't want to have to move to be closer to hospitals during clerkship. I would avoid downtown east of John St, and anything near the Hamilton General (very sketchy).

 

UofT

I'll give you my take on this, but its only my opinion. I didn't get an offer from UofT, but Mac was my number one choice. I really liked the idea of PBL, a 3 year program, and being close to Misissauga (where my family is). PBL definitely isn't what I envisioned it to be, because like Perry said, you have to get comfortable with not knowing everything, and that nagging feeling that you're missing something. I think the best part about it is that you learn how to learn. You really learn to find your own resources and assess their validity, which is important because that's how we'll be learning as physicians. Our classmates are also extremely supportive of one another. We're always sharing resources and helping eachother understand material without being condescending. Working in small groups obviously can cause problems too, and so we have to learn how to deal with conflict in a constructive and respectful way (hopefully).

[vanillabear]

Hello Mac 2015 students!

 

During the post-interview presentation, Perry/Rext did a great job convincing me that there is time to engage in numerous extra-curricular activities despite the shortened pre-clinical time. I was wondering if I could get some more information on what kind of activities are available. In particular, I'm looking at the feasibility of longer-term projects involving research, clinical practice, or community outreach, especially at the regional campuses (Waterloo especially, though comments for the Niagara campus are appreciated too!)

 

Thank you to all the McMaster 2015s who are participating in this thread, it's great to get information directly from the source!

 

Depends on what you're looking for, really.

 

Hamilton has lots of research - you just have to find it. NRC/WRC have dedicated research leads as well that usually have some good contacts.

 

Not sure what you mean by "clinical practice" - do you mean electives? If so, much easier to come by in regional campuses, especially if you want to do a longer term elective.

 

In terms of community outreach, I can't say much for k/w but Hamilton has lots of outreach programs available through both MacMed and other organizations. NRC's Dean (Dr. Stobbe) is HUGE in community outreach so you can expect to have lots of opportunity in this area should you end up at NRC.

 

It's important to realize that you'll have opportunities regardless of the campus you go to, though. All three campuses do a good job of providing different experiences to those who seek them!

[ralk]

Depends on what you're looking for, really.

 

Hamilton has lots of research - you just have to find it. NRC/WRC have dedicated research leads as well that usually have some good contacts.

 

Not sure what you mean by "clinical practice" - do you mean electives? If so, much easier to come by in regional campuses, especially if you want to do a longer term elective.

 

In terms of community outreach, I can't say much for k/w but Hamilton has lots of outreach programs available through both MacMed and other organizations. NRC's Dean (Dr. Stobbe) is HUGE in community outreach so you can expect to have lots of opportunity in this area should you end up at NRC.

 

It's important to realize that you'll have opportunities regardless of the campus you go to, though. All three campuses do a good job of providing different experiences to those who seek them!

 

Sorry, should have been more clear about what I meant by "clinical practice" - was more referring to in-hospital projects like quality improvement, clinical research, or implementation of patient services (I have some experience in varying degrees with all three). However, that there are longer-term electives is also good to know, as I would certainly prefer these over shorter-term arrangements.

 

Thank you (and aryastark) for the helpful information!

[Rext]

Woah this thread blew up over the weekend. I'll try to answer some of the questions that I think I can best address (and that my awesome classmates haven't already mentioned).

 

UofT vs Mac

As I mentioned during interview day, I did my undergrad at UTSG in Life Sci. As I also mentioned, it really doesn't matter where you go to medical school in Canada, you'll receive a good education everywhere and they will all prepare you to be good docs (great docs at mac ). This is evident when you see that all our medical schools have similar match rates (on average, there are "off" years for every school but this is largely cohort dependant and not school dependant), we all have similar performances on licensing exams (the pass rate for every school is like 99%), and on every objective matter, there really are no significant variances between schools.

 

So how to choose then? It comes down to a matter of personal preference. Even though the curriculum at all our excellent medical schools will prepare you well, they are fairly different (e.g. UofT is more lecture based, Mac is almost exclusively PBL). Which one would you prefer? When thinking about this, I encourage you to think in the long haul - instead of thinking "oh, I like lectures because I'm familiar with them and can do well (which is a totally legitimate line of reasoning)," I challenge you to consider which style would best serve you as a future physician. Would you gain more out of PBL?

 

I have many friends in UofT med, Queen's Med, etc. and as future MD's I am confident that they will all make exceptional physicians. I would be comfortable referring patients to them and would count myself lucky if I was one of their patients (I can think of no higher compliment to give a future colleague). I really do believe that all of our amazing medical schools in Canada will prepare you to be a good doctor. What it comes down to really is your personal preference, the vibe you get from the school (where do you think you'll best fit in), where you want to live, family, significant others, etc.

 

Phew that was an extremely long-winded response. Feel free to PM me for any more info on this.

 

Opportunities for Clinical Practice Research

There are loads of opportunities to do translational research (we have several physicians who specialize in this), OT research, etc. We have dedicated research leads in the campuses and for each department that will help organize this for you.