med56 Posted August 2, 2014 Report Share Posted August 2, 2014 I'm currently in 3rd year, going into 4th year soon. I just have a few questions about internal medicine and the CaRMS process. I'm interested in one particular school in Ontario (lets say it's not UofT and Mac). It's the school I'm attending right now. I want to stay at this school for a number of reasons. I'm not totally against moving anywhere really, but my personal preference would be to sit tight and stay at this one school for internal medicine. My question is, how unrealistic is it for me to expect to get into this one school? I *think* I'm a competitive applicant. Did very well during my core internal med rotation. I have 4-5 letters of reference so far, all from general internists or subspecialists (one of whom I've been doing research for for 2-3 years). I've got one publication from undergrad, and one publication in med school (in a subspecialty field). I also presented a poster at an international conference (albeit in a surgical subspecialty). I've worked on 3 projects so far in the same field that have yet to result in publications (but still required quite a bit of my time). Basically, the thing I focused on the most with my spare time in med school (other than studying) was research. I'm a bit worried about the extra-curricular side of things though. I didn't really participate in interest groups early on in med school. Didn't do much volunteering (although most of the research I did was not paid work, so technically "volunteering"). I didn't play any sports (although I never really have). My "hobbies" are mostly things you do as an individual, like investing/following industry trends and weightlifting/physical training. I spend a lot of time on these. Oh and I had a ton of observerships. So I guess my questions are: 1) How reasonable is it to want to get in to the same school I did my MD at in internal med? 2) Will the lack of volunteering in med school work against me? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NLengr Posted August 2, 2014 Report Share Posted August 2, 2014 Most people match to their home school. Programs generally don't care about volunteering. Work ethic, like-ability/fit with program and knowledge are what makes up the vast majority of the decision. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmorelan Posted August 2, 2014 Report Share Posted August 2, 2014 The odds of a student who wants internal at their home school getting it is extremely high based on historical data. No absolutes in CARMS but that is getting as close to it as you get in the game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mavrik13 Posted August 2, 2014 Report Share Posted August 2, 2014 I'm currently in 3rd year, going into 4th year soon. I just have a few questions about internal medicine and the CaRMS process. I'm interested in one particular school in Ontario (lets say it's not UofT and Mac). It's the school I'm attending right now. I want to stay at this school for a number of reasons. I'm not totally against moving anywhere really, but my personal preference would be to sit tight and stay at this one school for internal medicine. My question is, how unrealistic is it for me to expect to get into this one school? I *think* I'm a competitive applicant. Did very well during my core internal med rotation. I have 4-5 letters of reference so far, all from general internists or subspecialists (one of whom I've been doing research for for 2-3 years). I've got one publication from undergrad, and one publication in med school (in a subspecialty field). I also presented a poster at an international conference (albeit in a surgical subspecialty). I've worked on 3 projects so far in the same field that have yet to result in publications (but still required quite a bit of my time). Basically, the thing I focused on the most with my spare time in med school (other than studying) was research. I'm a bit worried about the extra-curricular side of things though. I didn't really participate in interest groups early on in med school. Didn't do much volunteering (although most of the research I did was not paid work, so technically "volunteering"). I didn't play any sports (although I never really have). My "hobbies" are mostly things you do as an individual, like investing/following industry trends and weightlifting/physical training. I spend a lot of time on these. Oh and I had a ton of observerships. So I guess my questions are: 1) How reasonable is it to want to get in to the same school I did my MD at in internal med? 2) Will the lack of volunteering in med school work against me? Very reasonable, and your best chance to match would be at your home school. If you don't match there, it most certainly won't be because of your lack of volunteering... It would be because you weren't a "good fit", aka not one of their top candidates for personality reasons. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
youbrokeit Posted September 2, 2014 Report Share Posted September 2, 2014 Apply everywhere and to everything you can stand unless you're willing to wait a year to try again on the off chance things don't work out. 1) You sound like you'd be a solid applicant, but so is everyone. It takes a lot to "stand out" in the pool you're competing in. 2) Class sizes have increased across the country in the last several years (although I think the cohort graduating in 2012/2013 was the largest) and the number of residency spots hasn't kept pace, so competition is tighter across the board than it was even a 3-4 years ago. 3) The second round is saturated with incredibly well-qualified IMGS (and CMGs) and is not an excellent backup plan. If you can get anything, it will likely be far from what you want. 4) You will be doing CaRMS again in Internal Medicine and depending on how competitive your subspecialty choice is, you may have to move again. For some subspecialties (e.g. Cardiology) you will likely need ADDITIONAL fellowships training and be competing for very few jobs across the country - more moving. I matched to my 3rd-choice location for IM. For the MSM match, location was more important to me than job description. I only ranked a few locations and went unmatched. This year I'm happily ignoring CaRMS and hunting for non-academic GIM jobs while I finish my 4th year. /Edit: Don't stress too much. There's probably an 70+% chance you'll get what you want where you want. The CaRMS website has stats on this from previous years if you're interested Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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