Cardiac surgery residency

[Guest Kirsteen]

Hi there,

 

Someone (sorry, great with faces but I'm often quite awful with names ) mentioned in the Toronto forum that the Toronto cardiac surgery residency requires completion of a PhD. I know that research within many surgical residencies is encouraged at UofT, but the PhD is not yet a formal part of the cardiac residency. Or is it an informal part? The program officially provides only one year to complete any sort of research. So then, how do they select students who will pursue the PhD? Do they expect an up-front commitment during the CaRMS interview? How about folks who already have PhDs in the cardiovascular area (and I know a few who are in undergraduate medical training programs now)--are they required to complete further research training during residency?

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[Guest Ian Wong]

Here's the link to the actual U of Toronto Cardiac Surgery program description, as listed by CaRMS. For interests sake, I've also included the link to all of the other specialties available through the CaRMS match:

 

www.carms.ca/programdir/504014.htm

www.carms.ca/programdir/spec.htm

While not mandatory, every resident is very strongly encouraged to pursue a postgraduate degree, as part of our stated goal of producing academic heart surgeons. The Academic Enrichment Year is intended to expose the resident to the academic aspects of cardiac surgery. Since most positions in Canada for cardiac surgery are university appointments, additional training in an academic discipline such as clinical, basic, education or epidemiological research is considered essential for the resident. The Royal College requires 12 months of such training, but the University of Toronto strongly recommends that residents enroll in the Clinician Scientist Program in his/her area of choice that will lead to a higher degree such as a Masters or PhD. In some cases, this may require an additional 1-3 years beyond the minimum 1 year of academic enrichment.

The above is an except from the Toronto Cardiac Surgery program, basically stating that you are only required to do a year of research, although they'd love for you to do more.

 

For Toronto therefore, they'd probably be looking in-depth at your CV to see if there's been any prior interest in research, and would probably spend time during the interviews exploring your current interest level in research. Unless they make it an absolute requirement for the residency, it would be highly unreasonable of them to expect an upfront commitment for doing a PhD (a six-year residency is a long time for people's priorities and career expectations to change as it is). If you already had a PhD, you'd probably have to complete the research year to satisfy the Royal College requirements, but I doubt they have any leverage to compel you to do more than that, unless you wanted to.

 

Ian

[Guest cheech10]

Hi Kirsteen,

I was the one that mentioned that based on some informal conversations. Ian's info is right, AFAIK. It's not a formal requirement, but it is *strongly* recommended. Don't know what happens for those with previous degrees, though.

[Guest Kirsteen]

Hi there cheech10,

 

Cheers for that. Is cardiac or cardiothoracic surgery an area that you've investigated as a possible career path?

 

In terms of completing the PhD during residency, do you know if the favourable topics are generally of a basic science nature, or do surgical residents (in cardiac and cardiothoracic) tackle PhDs in other realms, e.g., clinical research? One of the general surgical residents in our office started her M.Sc. in Clinical Epidemiology last year, but has decided to reclassify and complete the PhD in the same field. Another resident in plastics is completing a M.Sc. at IMS, but hers is of the basic science variety. So it seems that, in other surgical fields at least, there is some variety.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[Guest cheech10]

This was actually second-hand info, since I'm not a surgery kind of guy, so I don't really know any of the particulars.