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BC Minister's Son Beat Odds to Win Residency Spot


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It is obviously fishy but at the same time, the kid might have been a very strong applicant. Also it's for cardiac surg which typically is not a competitive field. For all we know he did deserve the spot and his dad just helped seal the deal. I would be pretty pissed if he got the spot only because of connections though, because I wasn't even eligible to apply to UBC for their spots and would have loved to match back home.

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6 unfilled spots in cardiac surgery this year. What were the odds to beat?

 

My thoughts exactly :)

 

and the cardiacs in particular do not accept people without obvious skill. I mean surgery program in general don't but cardiacs are famous for it - leaving spots open rather than fill them with people they don't want, and taking the long view - they only want the best.

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My thoughts exactly :)

 

and the cardiacs in particular do not accept people without obvious skill. I mean surgery program in general don't but cardiacs are famous for it - leaving spots open rather than fill them with people they don't want, and taking the long view - they only want the best.

 

and the best would not be someone who could not get into a Canadian med school.

 

Leviathan - where did you end up matching?

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and the best would not be someone who could not get into a Canadian med school.

 

Leviathan - where did you end up matching?

 

Potentially in individual cases - because their criteria is not the same as getting into medical school itself. For instance last summer I ran into a Canadian trained overseas with the pretty impressive surgery ability for clerk - very impressive. Wasn't exactly rocking the VR section though.

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and the best would not be someone who could not get into a Canadian med school.

 

Leviathan - where did you end up matching?

 

Some of these doctors' kids go straight overseas from high school, they don't even bother doing an undergrad in Canada. They rely on mom and/or dad's ability and connections to get them back to Canada. Actually heard one of them bragging about it and their parents' connections to program directors. This individual was laughing at all the Canadians doing undergrad programs while he was going straight into med school after high school.

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Some of these doctors' kids go straight overseas from high school, they don't even bother doing an undergrad in Canada. They rely on mom and/or dad's ability and connections to get them back to Canada. Actually heard one of them bragging about it and their parents' connections to program directors. This individual was laughing at all the Canadians doing undergrad programs while he was going straight into med school after high school.

 

Ah, nepotism is alive and well. Horribly unfair to those without the same kinds of connections.

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and the best would not be someone who could not get into a Canadian med school.

If you ever get into medical school in Canada, you're going to be in for a big shock when you discover some international students are much brighter and more capable than you. Not all of them, but definitely some of them.

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If you ever get into medical school in Canada, you're going to be in for a big shock when you discover some international students are much brighter and more capable than you. Not all of them, but definitely some of them.

 

I am in an Ontario med school.

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I am in an Ontario med school.

Congrats on your acceptance. Just be careful when you make comments like that. You never know where the residents or staff you're training under went to medical school. They might take you seriously and develop much higher expectations of your abilities.

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This stuff is always going to happen, unfair but lets be real. I just think that its a stupid move to connect your son within your own department. Cardiac surgery probably is a small club and you must know important people at other schools, can you not get your son discretely matched into programs elsewhere?

Nothing to be concerned about, everything is going to be brushed under the carpet and as much as we hate it all our powerless voices will be silenced. This is such a small scale scandal, BC politicians need to take a page out of the Ontario politics book, from ehealth to ornge to power scandal to crack cocaine and getting away with all of it.

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I wonder what's going through this kid's mind. Will he look at himself in a few years and be proud, trying to convince himself he truly deserved it?

 

Either way, this should only motivate normal folks like us to do our best and hope for the best.

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Entitled kids/parents never feel guilty, they just feel more entitled. Some of us are just dealt a bad hand in life to begin with, some us just have to be grateful we even manage to be able to be concerned about applying to med school and be able to come to premed 101. There are kids out there in the world that are hiding in caves trying to avoid being bombarded by allienoid looking aircrafts for whom premed 101 probably even isn't the last thing on their mind. Be grateful and work smart. I'll keep my fingers crossed for legit IMGs and CMGs to match in appropriate programs so they can take good care of my family when they are sick.

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I don't know any more about this story than the rest of you, but we don't have evidence that he was not a qualified applicant on his own merits.

 

I imagine there are university policies to deal with potential conflicts of interest - not sure what was done in this case, if anything, but it shouldn't require barring someone from applying to their hometown if they would have otherwise been eligible to do so.

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Why are people acting like this is such a big deal?

 

Is anyone actually naive enough to believe that this kind of thing doesn't happen every day in every single part of the world? Connections matter...hence why there is such a strong emphasis on NETWORKING these days.

 

May sound unfair, but it is what it is, and it's never going to change.

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Why are people acting like this is such a big deal?

 

Is anyone actually naive enough to believe that this kind of thing doesn't happen every day in every single part of the world? Connections matter...hence why there is such a strong emphasis on NETWORKING these days.

 

May sound unfair, but it is what it is, and it's never going to change.

 

It is never going to change if we the little people do nothing about blatant nepotism.

 

I am all for networking but not nepotism. Sure the latter exists everywhere but I was hoping in Canada it would not be so obvious.

 

Like another poster said you think the father would have found his son another cardiac residency with a buddy of his instead of right in his department. Guess entitlement knows no boundaries.

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