Ubc Or U Of T?

[kekappo]

Would there be differences in UBC VS UOFT in terms of their curriculum workload/lecture hours? (Both school introduced renewed/foundational curriculums recently) 

[Dr. Zoidberg]

This is true for every school. It's called home school advantage, it's not a "might", it "is" (especially popular programs like Vancouver anything or Toronto anything. If you want psychiatry in rural Newfoundland, maybe not so much). Hence say some one is dead set on derm, well go to a school that have a derm program.

This was something I found interesting and may be very important, especially since I would very much like to come back to Vancouver for residency if I leave for medical school. I don't think CaRMS puts out data to verify it but it makes sense. You get 4 years to network with the local residency program vs someone else that gets 2 weeks.

 

Would it be safe to say that pretty much all of the UBC residents in say EM and Derm are UBC MDs and same goes for UofT?

[jumed]

This was something I found interesting and may be very important, especially since I would very much like to come back to Vancouver for residency if I leave for medical school. I don't think CaRMS puts out data to verify it but it makes sense. You get 4 years to network with the local residency program vs someone else that gets 2 weeks.

 

Would it be safe to say that pretty much all of the UBC residents in say EM and Derm are UBC MDs and same goes for UofT?

 

I have some friends already matched to residency this year and last year...and they're all over the place. I know one went to UBC for school and Queens for res, one Alberta for school and UofT for res. Of course I also know who matched to res of their home school.  So I guess there are opportunities to match to another school if you like.

[InstantRamen]

Imho, Not necessarily. You can do electives in other cities. I think it'd be easier to match within your province tho. You can network within the department you want to specialize in much more easily.

 

I assume you have to work harder to network if you want to leave the province for residency. I know someone mentioned the "in province advantage", but can another person chime in? I'd like confirmation! Thanks.

 

Also, many users seem to be pushing for a specific school, but it's important to investigate ulterior motives of applicants.

[JohnGrisham]

This was something I found interesting and may be very important, especially since I would very much like to come back to Vancouver for residency if I leave for medical school. I don't think CaRMS puts out data to verify it but it makes sense. You get 4 years to network with the local residency program vs someone else that gets 2 weeks.

 

Would it be safe to say that pretty much all of the UBC residents in say EM and Derm are UBC MDs and same goes for UofT?

No. Not all are UBC MDs. Varies year to year.

[kekappo]

It's probably easier to go to ubc for med and do residency in toronto than the other way around (because ubc seems to have a protective factor for its grads since it's the only school in BC...whereas uoft gets applicants from across the country). Thoughts on this hypothesis? 

[schmitty]

For those that say U of T has a 'competitive' aura to it, I would say this is definitely not the case during medical school. For undergrad, yes, as a very large proportion of the student population seems to be professional-degree focused. However, once in medical school, I saw very few instances of fellow classmates being competitive. Rather, everybody is very willing to help each other out, share resources, etc. Afterall, it's pass-fail, so as they say, 7-0-and-go (70 is a pass, to get more is meaningless). 

 

As others have said, U of T is a much larger city with more research dollars and is arguably more recognizable in the US and worldwide, but this matters little for residency and beyond and U of T grads have no leg up for the CaRMS match. To me, both are amazing schools and I would choose based on where you feel like you would want to live for the next four years as either place will provide more than adequate education and networking to get you into a good residency program. 

[SolomonT]

I would like to summarize the key points in comparing UBC vs. UofT (2017).

 

1. Number of Learners

Comparing class sizes, UBC is slightly larger than U of T (288 vs. 259). However, UBC's students are spread among 4 campuses; IMP, NMP and SMP with 32 students each while VFMP has 192. U of T is split between 2 campuses, St. George and Mississauga. If I remember correctly, there are 59 students in Mississauga and 200 in St. George. At UBC, 33.3% of their students are distributed to smaller campuses while U of T has 22.7% of their class at Mississauga, if we consider it a satellite campus. IMP, NMP, SMP and VFMP are spread out more geographically than St. George and Mississauga, reducing the competition between students for clinical experience, research opportunities, volunteer opportunities, etc.

 

Once you reach clerkship, getting clinical experience becomes extremely valuable for residency applications. Everyone has electives but the amount of hands-on time you get differs. Toronto is known to have a large number of fellows and residents in their hospitals. If the attending is there, and there is a fellow or 2, the senior resident will have very little to do, and you'll have literally nothing to do but twiddle your thumbs as a clerk. This can be a very poor learning experience. At residency interviews, there are always stories of people who went to small campuses that had A LOT more hands-on experience than someone who went to a large center. 

 

U of T actually lists small class size as a benefit to Missisauga, #2 here (http://uoftmeds.com/news/9-10-great-things-about-mississauga) but their class is not that small compared to IMP, NMP and SMP.

 

2. Funding numbers

U of T has more overall funding than UBC but it has to compete with 5 other medical schools in Ontario for funding. When the government funds projects/centres, it tends to focus money on one particular school. For example, let's say NOSM is really good at Aboriginal Health research because of their geographic benefits. The government funds major research projects and builds a research center. But then the government has no incentive to fund the same thing another 5 times at the other schools. In Ontario, you'll find that research in some areas are actually better at schools other than U of T (I'll leave it up to you to figure out which). U of T is obviously a leader in many research areas though, just not ALL of them as you might believe. The 5 other schools combined together train more students than U of T and also get a large part of the research funds. UBC is the only medical school in BC so it tends to get all the medical research dollars in BC. For example, UBC has Canada's largest integrated brain centre, the Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health, for integrated research in neuroscience, psychiatry and neurology.

 

At a macroscopic level, you might be very happy that U of T gets a ton of research funding per year but how much of that actually trickles down to the average medical student? In another post I mentioned that CREMS (http://www.md.utoronto.ca/research-scholar-programs), the research program for U of T medical students, only funds about 10 students per year out of 259! That's only 3.8% of the class and the numbers have been decreasing year over year. Although the number of available projects is limited, the program is open to all first year U of T medical students. Talk about competition! (All Canadian medical schools are pass/fail so unless you actually fail first year, everyone is in good academic standing).

The number of student/mentor pairs accepted into the program is dependent on the available CREMS funding. For 2017, we expect to be able to fund 10 students. Qualified student/mentor pairs will be determined by a CREMS Advisory Committee.

The Research Scholar Program is open to all first-year U of T medical students. Only students in good academic standing are eligible.

 

Let's look at UBC's Summer Student Research Program (http://med-fom-faculty.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2012/02/SSRP_historical_application_and_funding_information.pdf). In the most recent 2012 data, the school funded 62 MD projects and 39 non-MD projects. Even with eligibility rules limiting the number of projects, they fund 100 projects a year. Their SSRP acceptance rate is around 50%! It is clear that UBC is willing to fund MD and even non-MD research. From 2004 to 2012, their numbers of increased significantly as well. Overall, it is clear that research funds are much more abundant for UBC medical students than U of T medical students.

 

3. Residency

A long topic, but all I'll say is that residency programs tend to prefer applicants from their home schools. Why? It's complicated but one easy thing to think about is the relationships you'll build if you spend 4 years at one school. The faculty might've taught you before, you might've shadowed them at some point and maybe you even did research with them. The things you learn about someone longitudinally are much more valuable than what you might feel about someone during a 2 week elective where they're on their best behaviour.

 

If you want to go to UBC for residency, then go to UBC. If you want to go to U of T for residency, then go to U of T.

 

4. Competitiveness

Competitiveness is hard to gauge for an entire school but just know at both schools, the people who want competitive specialities are extremely hard working. The people who tend to say that their school is not competitive are probably aiming for easier specialities. Don't let that lead you to believe that everyone is non-competitive, there are always cut-throat people out there. If many students are attracted to U of T due to prestige, they're probably more likely to be very competitive. 

[schmitty]

At a macroscopic level, you might be very happy that U of T gets a ton of research funding per year but how much of that actually trickles down to the average medical student? In another post I mentioned that CREMS (http://www.md.utoron...cholar-programs), the research program for U of T medical students, only funds about 10 students per year out of 259! That's only 3.8% of the class and the numbers have been decreasing year over year. Although the number of available projects is limited, the program is open to all first year U of T medical students. Talk about competition! (All Canadian medical schools are pass/fail so unless you actually fail first year, everyone is in good academic standing).

 

Just a quick correction - that is 10 spots for the long, 2 year research program. The regular summer research funding program through CREMS (comparable to the UBC one you mentioned) funds MANY more than that (most people who applied for a project got it, ~60 in addition to the 10 longitudinal people), not to mention lots of other opportunity for research beyond crems. http://www.md.utoronto.ca/summer-research-programs 

[JohnGrisham]

Just a quick correction - that is 10 spots for the long, 2 year research program. The regular summer research funding program through CREMS (comparable to the UBC one you mentioned) funds MANY more than that (most people who applied for a project got it, ~60 in addition to the 10 longitudinal people), not to mention lots of other opportunity for research beyond crems. http://www.md.utoronto.ca/summer-research-programs 

Above poster was trying really hard to make UBC seem better than UofT.

 

Quite a few of my classmates are at UofT right now doing summer research as UBC students.

 

UofT objectively has more research opportunities, if not at the school, but in the GTA in general. 

 

That is, if you're even interested in doing research. If you're not then it doesn't matter!

 

As for clinical experiences - UBC Vancouver is stretched thin, ask anyone currently in first/second year.   

 

Go wherever you want, but its obvious with some posters persuading people to go to one school or another, because they are probably on a waitlist at the school.

[InstantRamen]

 

Go wherever you want, but its obvious with some posters persuading people to go to one school or another, because they are probably on a waitlist at the school.

 

I wanted to say this. Hahaha. 

[Purkinje 2016]

Go wherever you feel you will be happiest living and studying for the next 4 years. The factors and circumstances that go into making this hard decision are different for each med student. Do what works best for you