Post Interview Talks

[_ _]

I felt great coming out of it, and now the inevitable doubt has started creeping in. As for what I'm trying to do with my time - focus on writing my thesis, but it is painfully, painfully slow Waiting another monthish to find out is super painful!

Haha yes this is my life right now. 20 pages left to write, 3 finals, a part-time job, and yet I'm still just thinking about how many days are left and trying to over-analyze my chances.

I personally always adopt the route of convincing myself it went terrible so I can't be disappointed. Works quite well, for bad news, but it certainly makes the time go by slowly

[the next Dr.L]

I liked Queens interview style the best, I felt the stations were more interactive and having a panel component brought out my personality more. Best part --> No million year long preamble or mandatory orientation/info sessions before and after... just get in and go! Oh and the structured time for follow-up questions was PERFECT... really helped you pace to avoid awkward cut off or sitting in silence forever.

 

Queens is definitely one of my top choices if I am lucky enough to get in.

 

Here's hoping, good luck everyone

 

ONE MORE MONTH!! 

[jojo123]

I felt good coming out of the interview but the more I think about my answers the more I fear I'm going to get rejected

I came out feeling good about the panel but the MMI completely threw me off 

[Neurophilic]

I came out feeling good about traditional but MMI style completely threw me off and I interviewed at 4 schools with MMI style! Fingers crossed but I don't know how to feel

Interesting to hear to that Queen's MMI was so different from other school's MMIs

[Earth Bound]

That was really helpful, thank you! 

Do you (or others) ever feel limited in terms of exposure to different specialties, etc. being in a smaller center? And do you find the smaller center/class translates to more one 'hands-on' experience in clerkships, again, compared to a larger city/school?

 

I did med school at Queen's. Loved it. I am totally biased for my alma mater.

 

Your questions are excellent and speak to the advantages/disadvantages of large vs small schools. Keep in mind, most final year med students and residents have a lot of experience with different schools since we usually visit a broad a variety of schools during electives. Thus, your particular medical school choice is not the be-all-end-all. There are always electives. Electives are 2-4 weeks long so we don't see everything about other schools but I did think I got a good sense of the larger differences.

 

Q1 - Yes, I did feel that the pediatrics experience was limited. Very sick kids and even potentially very sick kids got transferred to Toronto or Ottawa quickly. Otherwise, I feel like what I saw at Queen's in terms of internal meds, surgery, emerg, psych, family med and obs gyn prepared me well for what I have seen in the bigger city where I am doing residency. My experience was that at the bigger schools there is more weird and wonderful (lupus presenting with a GI bleed!) on top of the bread-and-butter stuff in each specialty. This can make a learner more adept at the routine stuff because there isn't time to spare (query appendicitis consult in 10 minutes!).

 

Q2 - Yes, I did feel like I had more opportunities to be directly involved in patient care as a clerk at Queen's, especially compared to the bigger schools where I did electives. I did about 6 LPs. I intubated >12 patients on anesthesia. I delivered >10 babies (start to finish, in a community hospital rotation). I did chest compressions 4 times times I will never forget. YMMV. This experience is not necessarily limited to Queen's but I did feel like there were less fellows and senior residents fighting me for these opportunities. I love procedures and did my best to be in the right place at the right time as well of course.

[NothingButNetters]

For previous cycle students, do the Canadian schools send out emails on May 10th at ~9am with the decision, or does one have to sign into SOLUS or equivalent to find out the decision status? Or is the email just to "check SOLUS"?

 

Cheers!

[_ _]

I did med school at Queen's. Loved it. I am totally biased for my alma mater.

 

Your questions are excellent and speak to the advantages/disadvantages of large vs small schools. Keep in mind, most final year med students and residents have a lot of experience with different schools since we usually visit a broad a variety of schools during electives. Thus, your particular medical school choice is not the be-all-end-all. There are always electives. Electives are 2-4 weeks long so we don't see everything about other schools but I did think I got a good sense of the larger differences.

 

Q1 - Yes, I did feel that the pediatrics experience was limited. Very sick kids and even potentially very sick kids got transferred to Toronto or Ottawa quickly. Otherwise, I feel like what I saw at Queen's in terms of internal meds, surgery, emerg, psych, family med and obs gyn prepared me well for what I have seen in the bigger city where I am doing residency. My experience was that at the bigger schools there is more weird and wonderful (lupus presenting with a GI bleed!) on top of the bread-and-butter stuff in each specialty. This can make a learner more adept at the routine stuff because there isn't time to spare (query appendicitis consult in 10 minutes!).

 

Q2 - Yes, I did feel like I had more opportunities to be directly involved in patient care as a clerk at Queen's, especially compared to the bigger schools where I did electives. I did about 6 LPs. I intubated >12 patients on anesthesia. I delivered >10 babies (start to finish, in a community hospital rotation). I did chest compressions 4 times times I will never forget. YMMV. This experience is not necessarily limited to Queen's but I did feel like there were less fellows and senior residents fighting me for these opportunities. I love procedures and did my best to be in the right place at the right time as well of course.

Wow, this is such a thoughtful response, thank you! 

 

Now just to wait until May 10th to see if there will be a decision to make! 

[innerp2ce]

I don't know if this is an appropriate thread to ask this question but..

For those of you who received rejections in the past from Queen's, how did you feel about your performance following the interview? Did you think or feel that you did really bad (in MMI/panel/both) and kind of expected the rejection, or did you actually feel good about your interview and was surprised/disappointed/confused about the rejection?

 

I guess I am just trying to gauge what I should be expecting at this point as I've experienced all possible emotions regarding my interview performance and am just hoping to be at least waitlisted (of course, an acceptance would be phenomenal).

[gottawannit]

I don't know if this is an appropriate thread to ask this question but..

For those of you who received rejections in the past from Queen's, how did you feel about your performance following the interview? Did you think or feel that you did really bad (in MMI/panel/both) and kind of expected the rejection, or did you actually feel good about your interview and was surprised/disappointed/confused about the rejection?

 

I guess I am just trying to gauge what I should be expecting at this point as I've experienced all possible emotions regarding my interview performance and am just hoping to be at least waitlisted (of course, an acceptance would be phenomenal).

Its amazing how different interviewers and interviewees gauge performance. For example, you may have stumbled and stammered all the way through one station, thought you bombed it. Yet, even though the communication was a struggle, your points were strong, leaving a good impression overall with the interviewer. Conversely, you could have gone it and been confident as hell, dropped the mic and thought you killed it. But really your response was relatively myopic, leaving a poor impression overall.

 

Though this was my first year interveiwing at queen's, I was rejected from calgary a couple years ago and the second example rang especially true for me. I honestly thought I nailed nearly every station (they had 12 that year, so highly unlikely) and driving home starting planning on rearranging summer plans because I was certain I was in. Nope, Went full durp and scored like 30th percentile or something crappy like that.

 

I've heard of numerous other examples of both cases so, as much as we hate to, we kinda just have to wait and see how it all played out 

[Savac]

Its amazing how different interviewers and interviewees gauge performance. For example, you may have stumbled and stammered all the way through one station, thought you bombed it. Yet, even though the communication was a struggle, your points were strong, leaving a good impression overall with the interviewer. Conversely, you could have gone it and been confident as hell, dropped the mic and thought you killed it. But really your response was relatively myopic, leaving a poor impression overall.

 

Though this was my first year interveiwing at queen's, I was rejected from calgary a couple years ago and the second example rang especially true for me. I honestly thought I nailed nearly every station (they had 12 that year, so highly unlikely) and driving home starting planning on rearranging summer plans because I was certain I was in. Nope, Went full durp and scored like 30th percentile or something crappy like that.

 

I've heard of numerous other examples of both cases so, as much as we hate to, we kinda just have to wait and see how it all played out 

Can confirm.