relative quality of Canadian medical schools

[Guest maxell]

Thank you!

 

{edit}

Just aside, I would like to mention everyone should feel free to post whatever ideas or opinions he or she has without fear of personal attack. Fortunately, this site is not run by a a single individual that compels us to hide our true feelings or base all our comments on "fact" and concrete evidence.

 

I feel that the true purpose of this section of the board as a forum for students and applicants has been obscured by some extremely ugly comments - including some which I made myself. I do however believe that no one should monopolize a topic and try to trivialize another person's comments - let us respect one another, and if something does not appeal to us, let is pass or post something that states the contrary.

[Guest ManitobaMed]

Yup, he's pretty white... Cuando yo quiero parecer mas inteligente, escribo en otros idiomas. 8o

[Guest maxell]

It is interesting to note that through out all this discourse with Mr Zack, which fortunately has been deleted, not once has he presented evidence of why the UM medical school is such a great place to be at, although he constantly demands that I present evidence when stating the contrary. He assumes by default the UM a great place to be at - if it ain't bad, it sure must be good. Since he himself stated that he is neither a student nor a "UM Staffer" (haha), how does he know this place is such a great one to be at?

 

I respect the judgements of fellow students who can give a balanced view and recognize that no one place is perfect in all respects. Manitoba may be a great place to go to, but you don't convince people by using faulty logic and lengthly diatribes. Why don't we start a post where people can state what makes the province and the university unique in this country, and what makes the UM shine compared to other places? E.g. missing Manitoba, what did you miss so much about your home province, and why are you so happy to come back? What about OOP candidates - why did you choose MB (if you had the choice of elsewhere)? Maybe you can enlighten me - I'm really interested.

 

It's precisely those people, who are so bigoted and cannot tolerate any discussion that contravenes their own beliefs, whom I am attempting to avoid. These people, through their one-sided views and rude comments do a disservice to the cause they are trying to promote.

[Guest sazzafrazz]

From my experience as a med I in the 2001-2002 season...

 

i suppose it depends on what everyone is looking for however I'll list things that made my first year great.

 

1. 87 new friends, any of which would give me the shirt off of their back as I would for them, and none of which that I could even fathom disliking in any sense of the word. Manitoba knows how to pick a cohesive, synergistic group of generous medical students.

 

2. Outstanding lecturers. Every lecture is given by a leader in the specific field that they work in. It makes for a lot of professors, but you always get the best.

One example of hundreds would be that community medicine was taught by the chief medical officer for Winnipeg and surrounding areas. He was phenomenol!

 

3. Our curriculum is broken into many small group sessions that you can gain an emense amount of understanding and knowledge from if you go prepared. Small groups for the most part are 6-8 students to 1 professor and can go up to a max of about 12. For example, EKG tutorials are all run by Cardiologists or Cardiac surgeons. NOT emergency, family med, PHD...BlahBlahBlah. In these sessions regardless of the subject you get free access to 100s of specialists literally. You can grill them, go for coffee with them, ask them about their job or anything else, make arrangements to do early exposures with them,.... they always accept taking on students to teach(I have not been turned down once! in fact I have always been met with great enthusiasm) I just finished the most amazing series of emergency exposures. The doctor I was with was fantastic, there was also a first year med resident(from MB) that was just starting his residency who was equally great. They made me feel super comfortable, challenged me with some questions that I was able to answer and felt great about, allowed me to go in and examine the patient on my own or with them leading or watching. I loved every second of it. This experience could be applied to all of the exposures I have gone on. I've done cardiology (and surgery - amazing to see a beating heart), general surgery, plastic surgery, emergency, family med, respirology, neurology, obs/gyne, pediatric emerg, and a couple of others.

 

4. The school so far will sponser students who want to attend any conference that has been in the city and has sponsered some out of conferences as well. I've attended quite a few.

 

5. BSc (med) program for Bachelor applicants. Gives lots of different types of experiences reasearching anything from myocyte apoptosis to psychosocial indicators for successful lung transplantation to delivering babies, all of which are PAID with two weeks holidays. You graduate from med school with an extra degree under your belt.

 

6. There are interest groups usually run by the upper year classes or some of the actual surgeons, etc. These groups give you access to information and people in areas that your interested in as well as training seminars, for example.

I learned a few different knots already in a seminar run by several surgeons. They set up multiple stations and had specimens that we could practice stitching up or various different types of techniques and closures to try.

 

7. We have the intramural sports teams. VB, Basketball, soccor, ultimate, salsa dancing classes, + many others.

 

8. super fantastic block parties the night of our exams after each block. they're fun!

 

9. we have all four seasons, YEAH! the winter is great for studying! as well as snowmobiling, cross country skiing, snow-pitch (soft ball in the winter - lots of fun), toboganning, etc, etc, etc. Spring and Fall are beautiful and summer is awesome. Manitoba has one of the world's top 10 beaches if you can believe that, 3 miles of white sand on one of our largest freshwater lakes. It's unique because all of the other top 40 ranked beaches are on the ocean - and so you swallow a lot of salt water when your in the water.

 

10. In defense of the administration, they are awesome. They are not there to cater only to incoming medical students that they constantly get phone call from (remember they interview over 200 people). They all know all of the medical students by name. Once your in they work their ASS off for you with any request that you make.

 

11. The gross lab work was great. They had lots of teachers available. We had 4 people to a cadavre, lots of room to see and get your hands in there. All of the anatomists are available at any time for private/small group tutorial or quiz sessions.

 

12. Facilities are awesome, gym with tonnes of weights and aerobic equipment, aerobic classes, pilates, etc, etc, etc, goes on and on. They are building a new recreation area for the students this summer

 

13. Lecture halls are outfitted so that you can plug in your laptop at any seat in the theatre.

 

14. Medical ethics is a class that many would skip as we are not examined on it really. We had full attendance because the doc teaching the ethics was just out of this world great! Small groups for ethics was run by Philosophy graduates. They made all of the issues very challenging and some of them could literally get you all confused on what you were so sure of prior to meeting them. I was great!

 

15. Respirology - taught phenomenally in the lecture hall. Dr. Bshouty is a good lecturer, his notes are comprehensive, the small group leaders were terrific.

 

16. Cardiology - awesome block

 

OK I could go on for another hour but I've got somewhere to be.

 

17. Very low cost of living!!!!!

 

saz

[Guest Waitlistee]

Thanks sazzafrazz for defending U of M med school and providing such insights as to why it's a great school..they are very thoughtful

Hopefully I'll get the news soon...

[Guest ManitobaMed]

Hey Saz,

 

Thanks for this great post! Hopefully, I'll be able to speak as clearly and specifically on the U of M med program a year from now.

 

For everyone,

My reasons for choosing the U of M -- and the province of Manitoba -- are pretty hard to explain, but I'll try.

 

Why I chose the U of M:

While the students at the other schools I visited had obviously formed friendships, the students at the U of M just seemed closer somehow. When I emailed some of the med Is prior to my interviews, each reply I received exuded a genuine happiness. The students seemed pleased not only with the med school program itself, but also with the so-called med school experience.

 

Ultimately, I wasn't looking for a school with a great reputation; having attended Queen's, a school that lives by and for its reputation, I honestly feel that reputation is a poor criterion by which to choose an educational environment and that good reps are often undeserved. Instead, I was looking for a school where I could be HAPPY for four years. "Happy" for me means learning in a non-competitive environment, participating in the non-medical activities I love, and interacting and exchanging knowledge with an array of caring, compassionate people. (I certainly don't mean to suggest, however, that the U of M is the only school that fulfills these criteria.)

 

Some other factors:

1. I fully expect medical school to present a number of struggles, both intellectual and emotional, and a supportive environment such as I sensed at the U of M is precisely what I'm looking for to counter these strains.

 

2. Some of my own doctors, plus other doctors I've seen/met, are employed by the U of M. Of those who are, most are excellent physicians, and I would be privileged to learn from them.

 

3. I'm considering oncology, and, from the excellent staff down to the brand-spanking-new building at HSC, CancerCare Manitoba is *awesome*.

 

4. I'm also considering family medicine, and this seems to be a U of M strength. For summer experience, there are two major programs, one in rural med and the other in northern med.

 

5. The BSc (med) program also seems like a great summer option.

 

6. Decent tuition.

 

7. I miss my family. (This goes much higher on the list, actually.)

 

8. I love Manitoba, and that's where the University of Manitoba is.

 

On why I love Manitoba:

1. THE PEOPLE. Manitobans are generally a friendly, laid-back bunch who care about their neighbours and have great community spirit.

 

2. It's a beautiful province in a low-key kind of way. We normally have bright blue skies during the day, bright white stars at night, plus the northern lights appearing periodically throughout the year. We have rolling hills, river valleys, and marshes that are bright green (well, except the water, which looks very much like water) in the summer and pure white in the winter -- minus el nino, that is. There are plenty of lakes and rivers and an ocean. There are farms. There's tundra. There's shield. There's a statue in Flin Flon. Why, even Winnipeg has some pretty cool locations.

 

3. It's fun. There are a lot of festivals (e.g. festival du voyageur, Folklorama, Fringe festival, Ukranian festival, Icelandic festival, etc.). Winnipeg has great culture and great restaurants. Native culture. Sports events. There are a lot of outdoor activities available in our parks and nature areas. There's snow.

 

4. Invigorating conversation on the weather. *No one* discusses weather as we Manitobans do -- probably cuz we get so much of it.

[Guest brandonite]

I would not go to any other school in Canada. U of M has great people, both students and faculty, there is some amazing research going on, you get a great education, and Winnipeg is a city that is very unfairly maligned, in my opinion.

 

From the perspective of a future MD/PhD, and a fairly hard-core researcher, I think that Winnipeg has a ton to offer. I would probably have had a decent shot at getting into places like Toronto, but I really saw no need to even apply. You have the Virology lab like two blocks from the medical school, and you have the National Research Council about a five minute walk away. Both of those places are truly world leaders. In addition, the cardiac research program through the Physiology department in the medical school (I'm interested in cardiology) is really a world leader. They are just building a new research lab at the St. B. that will only increase the research potential. Put all of these together, and I think Winnipeg is well positioned to become the place in Canada for medical research, or at least the place outside Toronto.

 

Add it to all of the things that people have already said, and you get an idea about why I like the U of M so much.

 

I think that if there was just a ranking of medical schools done in Canada, the U of M would do fairly well. The problem is that most people tend to think of the Macleans survey, which of course, means that the 20,000 or whatever undergrads swamp out the 400 medical students. I think that is really holding the med school back...

[Guest Jennifer Y]

Eh, you might want to have a look, I think that there is a ranking by MacLeans of just medical schools in Canada.

[Guest brandonite]

Nope. There is not. There is a category of schools in the Macleans ranking for medical/doctoral schools, but those rank the entire school, not just the medical school.

[Guest Curious Brian]

I own a hard copy of the Maclean's ranking so I can confidently tell you that there is no such thing in this world. I hope you were not referrring to the Medical/Doctoral university ranking...'cause that's for a rank of the universities with primary/extensive medical and other PhD programs. It's bizzare that the Memorial U of Newfoundland was not included with the bunch..although it does have a med school and a variety of advanced degree programs. I guess it was probably because their PhD programs are in some way asininely judged lacking according to Maclean's. But I certainly wouldn't think so. Well...it's no doubt an insult to the university although it did get ranked in another category. The Maclean's rankings are seriously wanting because they will never be able to rank schools like the USnews world report. This maybe an inherent shortcoming due to the higher educational system in Canada. We just don't have any Podunk universities or Hollywood Upscale colleges. Do you how much can a ranking mean with just 16 schools? If I ranked you and me and brandonite and ManitobaMed for some sort of thing. There's ought to be someone who would rank the last. But due to the sample size it'd just not be statistically significant to really mean anything. A great way to generate some sure-fire sale profits for Maclean's nonetheless. Just my $0.02

[Guest Jennifer Y]

Sorry, misread the rankings and so did not apply to UofMan or UofSask when I saw that they were at very bottom of the rankings:)

[Guest V]

I gotta add that U of M is great. I was an OOP applicant and I was fortunately accepted this year. The only reason i chose not to attend, was because I was offered acceptance to schools closer to me. Family is huge to me, so leaving them was kinda hard.

 

It is a GREAT school, with GREAT people and GREAT faculty. If you have the shot, go for it. I'm sure you will love it.

 

Go U of M Go.

 

Cheers,

V