Backing up

[ACHQ]

Hi guys I know its a bit early to be thinking about CaRMs (for myself) but I was wondering lets say you're interested in something competitive like A) Emerg/Rads/Anesthesia and something a little less competitive like Internal, A being your 1st choice and B being your 2nd. If you wanted to be on the safe side and back up with family, and did no electives in it (because you did your electives in A and B above to be competitive), would this be a smart idea, especially if you're only applying to Family spots in Ontario? Or should you do 1 elective in family (even if its your 3rd choice)?

[NLengr]

Hi guys I know its a bit early to be thinking about CaRMs (for myself) but I was wondering lets say you're interested in something competitive like A) Emerg/Rads/Anesthesia and something a little less competitive like Internal, A being your 1st choice and B being your 2nd. If you wanted to be on the safe side and back up with family, and did no electives in it (because you did your electives in A and B above to be competitive), would this be a smart idea, especially if you're only applying to Family spots in Ontario? Or should you do 1 elective in family (even if its your 3rd choice)?

 

I wouldn't bother to do an elective in a SECOND back up.

[atomickitten86]

Hi guys I know its a bit early to be thinking about CaRMs (for myself) but I was wondering lets say you're interested in something competitive like A) Emerg/Rads/Anesthesia and something a little less competitive like Internal, A being your 1st choice and B being your 2nd. If you wanted to be on the safe side and back up with family, and did no electives in it (because you did your electives in A and B above to be competitive), would this be a smart idea, especially if you're only applying to Family spots in Ontario? Or should you do 1 elective in family (even if its your 3rd choice)?

 

Thanks for bringing this up. I was thinking something similar.

 

Related to your question, my question is if we do third year clerkship rounds, don't those act even more as "audition electives". I'm at U of T too, and I thought that my 8 or so weeks in family med during clerkship would be sufficient to get a reference letter (hopefully a good one!) and for an "audition" to the U of T family med program.

 

I obviously don't know how residency programs think... but in fairness to students, we get like 3 half days of dermatology during clerkship and limited time is other specialties as well (or none), is it so hard to believe that someone rather spend their elective period pursuing that possibility versus doing another 2 weeks in something they've already did 10 weeks of.

[rmorelan]

Personally I wouldn't also do a backup elective in a 3rd tier choice, particularly if it is family.

 

It would be very hard to 1st round interview in 3 separate fields, you already backed up with another non-competitive field, family is widely available still in the second round if you are mobile, and odds are quite small you would fail in both your other choices.

 

The attempt to diversify that much would weaken you chances at the other two too much I think.

[rmorelan]

Thanks for bringing this up. I was thinking something similar.

 

Related to your question, my question is if we do third year clerkship rounds, don't those act even more as "audition electives". I'm at U of T too, and I thought that my 8 or so weeks in family med during clerkship would be sufficient to get a reference letter (hopefully a good one!) and for an "audition" to the U of T family med program.

 

I obviously don't know how residency programs think... but in fairness to students, we get like 3 half days of dermatology during clerkship and limited time is other specialties as well (or none), is it so hard to believe that someone rather spend their elective period pursuing that possibility versus doing another 2 weeks in something they've already did 10 weeks of.

 

It should be - in clerkship you I think you should aim for a letter from the big rotations you are interested in anyway - I got one from surgery, internal, and rads in 3rd year. That really helps take some pressure off your electives when they come up.

[Alastriss]

I agree with rmorelan. Especially in my case I ended up switch what I wanted to do midway trough electives so having picked up those letters in rotations i thought I was interested in was huge for me to take the stress off.

[placenta]

Then in regards to specialty A and B, how should I dedicate number of weeks per specialty to ensure that I have reasonable chance for A and B for instance? 60% and 40%? of 80% and 20%? Thanks in advance!

[ArchEnemy]

It should be - in clerkship you I think you should aim for a letter from the big rotations you are interested in anyway - I got one from surgery, internal, and rads in 3rd year. That really helps take some pressure off your electives when they come up.

 

When do you ask for reference letters? Right after finishing the rotations or before applying to CaRMS?

[NLengr]

When do you ask for reference letters? Right after finishing the rotations or before applying to CaRMS?

 

Right after rotations. When you are fresh in people's minds.

[rmorelan]

When do you ask for reference letters? Right after finishing the rotations or before applying to CaRMS?

 

Right after. You want to make sure they have a fresh impression for the letter, even if they just jotted down a few comments they can incorporate into The letter later

[rmorelan]

Right after rotations. When you are fresh in people's minds.

 

Whoops double post, so I obviously Agree with this

[ACHQ]

Then in regards to specialty A and B, how should I dedicate number of weeks per specialty to ensure that I have reasonable chance for A and B for instance? 60% and 40%? of 80% and 20%? Thanks in advance!

 

I'd also like to know the opinions on this.

[JJ1985]

I'd also like to know the opinions on this.

 

I divided it 60:40

But a lot of people will tell you if you are going for a very competitive specialty to do 80:20.

[rmorelan]

very, very specialty dependent. that is the sort of thing you need to ask around about with recent residents to see collectively what works etc.

[ellorie]

You don't need to do 60/40 to back up with family, do you? Not that I necessarily would. Just wondering.

[NLengr]

Right after. You want to make sure they have a fresh impression for the letter, even if they just jotted down a few comments they can incorporate into The letter later

 

You don't need to do 60/40 to back up with family, do you? Not that I necessarily would. Just wondering.

 

Nope. I wouldn't stress about getting a family spot unless you are really tied to one location/program. Just do a single (maybe 2) electives in family and you are golden.

 

You need to balance it vs. your first choice specialty. If its ultra competitive, you may do no or only a single family elective. You need to max face time in competitive specialties.

[ellorie]

Maybe I will change my mind and apply to something more competitive, but right now I am leaning psych. I plan to probably spend as much time as I can doing that and then maybe 2 weeks of family and 2 of something else for my distribution stuff.

[placenta]

Thank you! So I guess if reference letters are due by, let's say November 15th, then we would want to complete the combination of speciality A and B by then to ensure I get letters from both specialities, correct? That would give me about 11 weeks of rotation time in A and B...oy

[benge88]

How necessary is it to have done an elective in family if family is our number 2?

[rmorelan]

You don't need to do 60/40 to back up with family, do you? Not that I necessarily would. Just wondering.

 

Not at all

[rmorelan]

How necessary is it to have done an elective in family if family is our number 2?

 

Not particularly - I mean they pretty much will know you are backing up etc and electives are limited - now that doesn't mean you are super competitive of course so you would probably want to be more open with respect to location, but that is the point really I think a few of us are making - you cannot be maximally effective for more than one specialty. You are going to have to make trade offs.

[bloh]

That's pretty inaccurate advice nowadays. Some programs won't even give you an interview unless you have a least 2-4 weeks of electives in family.

[rmorelan]

That's pretty inaccurate advice nowadays. Some programs won't even give you an interview unless you have a least 2-4 weeks of electives in family.

 

well that was what I was implying with the open to location for backup point but I guess I wasn't all that clear I would definitely agree that some centers won't interview you without electives - I was looking at this from a backup point of view though and was assuming as such you would have to be pretty open to location.

[A-Stark]

Then in regards to specialty A and B, how should I dedicate number of weeks per specialty to ensure that I have reasonable chance for A and B for instance? 60% and 40%? of 80% and 20%? Thanks in advance!

 

As with anything to do with CaRMS, weigh any advice you get carefully. Ideally, you should decide on a single specialty and go all out for it. For some, that often means a variety of electives, and this is certainly true of family. If you plan to apply to family in the first iteration, as a backup or otherwise, you should do at least one elective in it.

 

Otherwise, the answer is that "it depends", and varies by specialty and by program. If you're going for emerg, an elective in family wouldn't raise any eyebrows, nor would ortho, plastics, gen surg, anesthesia, or IM. If you're going for IM, multiple electives in ortho would be considered odd (though not a dealbreaker at your home program necessarily... assuming it's not a competitive year). If you're going for anything very competitive, max out your elective time in that specialty.

 

In general, though, some specialties just want evidence of a strong interest and a significant but not necessarily overwhelming number of elective weeks, e.g. 6 weeks may be ample, but that assumes you can get strong letters in that time as well.

 

Basically the second choice can rarely be anything competitive, but there are no hard and fast rules. It changes from year-to-year and from person-to-person. Never believe anything from someone who's never been through the process. Trust maybe half of what someone says who has been.

[Lactic Folly]

To expand on that point, it should be borne in mind that selection committees are composed of people. It follows that different people will look for slightly different things in candidates' applications, and come to varying conclusions about their desirability. As well, the composition of selection committees varies from year to year.

 

Therefore, as A-Stark says, there are no hard and fast rules, which I realize makes CaRMS more difficult compared to the strict eligibility criteria of medical school admissions (which still has its own variation in the assessment of more subjective elements).