Upcoming Presentation: Medical School Admissions

[Guest Kirsteen]

Hi all,

 

I'm in the process of finding out more about this, but I just received a heads up this morning regarding an interesting-looking set of Grand Rounds that will take place at Toronto General this week. Here are the details:

 

Title: Medical School Admissions - Something Old, Something New

Date: Thursday, June 20, 2002

Time: 7:30 a.m. - 9:00 a.m.

Location: Toronto General Hospital, 1EN-430, 200 Elizabeth Street

Presenters: from McMaster University

 

As yet, I haven't managed to uncover the specific agenda, but it sounds intriguing. Most likely, I'll be there with venti latte in hand if anyone would care to rise and shine at that time, too.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[Guest TimmyMax]

Hi Kirsteen,

 

Nice piece of detective work there. I'm sure there are more than a few people who would be interested. When you find out the details, please post them for us!

 

Take care,

Tim

[Guest Kirsteen]

Hi there,

 

Following up on this, I managed to get in contact with the folks organizing the event, and they e-mailed what they had as an agenda. Really, it differed only from the above in that it provided the names/positions of the speakers. I'll probably still nip down on Thursday morning anyway, as it isn't too far from me, and I'll post if there was anything nourishing aside from the latte.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[Guest p]

Hi Kirsteen --

 

Is this talk intended to be open to the public? I don't want to go all the way downtown to find that it's for summer research people or something :-)

 

Thanks for finding out and posting this for everyone!!

[Guest Kirsteen]

Hi p,

 

Quite honestly from what little info I've gleaned, I don't believe these Grand Rounds are geared towards meds applicants nor the general public; although, with respect to these types of presentations, there's typically no manned turnstyle so anyone can sit anonymously in the audience.

 

It's being hosted by OMEN (Ontario Medical Education Network) whose primary interests seem to lie in research, collaboration and refinement of medical education in Ontario. Therefore, I'd imagine that the audience may be filled with people of similar interests including, most likely, people who do conduct research over the summer (on medical education).

 

I'd like to check it out anyway, if nothing else, to perhaps catch a glimpse (as a future meds applicant) as to what the future may hold. Again, if anything interesting emerges from it, I will post it here.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[Guest Carolyn]

I just checked out who was presenting -- it isn't anyone directly involved in admissions at all; however, one of them Geoff Norman has done a lot of epidemiology/statistics around the admissions process - so I'm sure it will be very interesting to hear what he has to say. Dr. Reiter is a great guy who is quite involved in the programme and I believe he has done some research in this. He is very evidence-based, heading up the med school protocol review committee (i.e. whenever someone wants to do research on mac students, he reviews the project to ensure it is well-designed and ethical -- otherwise we'd be asked to fill out surveys weekly!). I don't know Dr. Salvatory, the other presenter.

 

I thought it might have to do with the trial mini-interview style they tried this application process -- with short ten minute interviews/scenarios (kind of like an osce set-up), but I figure they probably haven't finished working on the project and the main investigators aren't listed at speaking at the rounds.

 

Nonetheless, I'm sure it will be interesting. I look forward to hearing what you learn from it.

 

Carolyn

 

P.S. Usually Grand Rounds are open to everyone. I'm sure you will be quite welcome there - in fact you will probably feel quite "anonymous"... It is actually a great practice to get into in medical school as grand rounds can be exceptional learning experiences, so if you can work some into your schedule each week in your medical school career, I'm sure you'll benefit from them.

[Guest John M]

Is there a particular dress code for the event?

 

I'll probably be in my suit because I'll be heading off to my summer job following the presentation. Will I look a little out of place? (ie "who's that guy, he looks like he's headed to the prom")

 

Thanks, kind of a dumb question, thanks for answering

 

John M

[Guest Carolyn]

Usually rounds are filled with people who are just starting their regular day - so you'll see people in ties and people still in their green's from being on call the night before. So you might seem more dressed up than others but that won't matter because no one will know who you are (except Kirsteen will be able to pick you out of the crowd)... there is no signing in (actually there may be but you don't have to sign in - it is more for certain departments who want to know that their doctors are attending rounds!), no nametags, likely no one will even give you more than a glance...

 

You might want to leave the boutenierre at home...

 

Hope that answers your questions.

[Guest Kirsteen]

Cheers for some background on the presenters, Carolyn.

 

Kirsteen

[Guest MDWannabe]

Hi Kirsteen and Carolyn,

 

Thanks for the info re this presentation, Kirsteen. Carolyn, if this is presentation in part concerns the trial interview process, wouldn't they have included Dr. Eva, who seemed to be the contact for that whole process?

[Guest Carolyn]

Exactly - that's what I meant - as this presentation does not include the main investigators it likely is not about this trial interview process...

[Guest MDWannabe]

Oops. Sorry Carolyn, I misread your post. Notwithstanding, the OMEN presentation did turn out to be about the MMI study and was very interesting. For those of you wanting more info, check my post in the Mac section.

[Guest BrainDrain]

Did anyone go to this presentation? I have third hand information that it was about Mac people trying to implement an even more idiotic admission process (if that is even possible!) They have this idea that there would be something like a dozen interviewers each in separate rooms. Then, an interviewee would go interview with the first interviewer who would ask them ONE question. After giving a response, the interviewee would go to the next room to interview with the second interviewer who would also ask them ONE question, and so on. That way, all interviewees are asked the same set of questions and their answer for each would be judged by the same person. Kind of a way to make the interview process more standardized.

 

Again, I heard this from a friend of a friend so I can't confirm any of this.

 

BrainDrain

[Guest MDWannabe]

Hi Braindrain,

 

As indicated just above your post, I did go to the presentation, and talked a bit about it under the thread called

 

OMEN Education Grand Rounds: Admission Process

 

in this part of the forum. I believe the last entry there was near the end of June.

 

I also went through the interview study, and it was actually pretty fascinating. I believe part of the thinking out there is that in the standard 30 minute interview, opinions are formed in the first 5 minutes, so the last 25 minutes tend not to serve a greater purpose. In other words, you could easily turn someone off and then lose your chance at the prize. On the other hand, if you have 10 opportunities to have diverse 8 minute discussions, you could totally embarrass yourself in on section and then have 9 opportunities to redeem yourself. The other factor is that this type of interview is supposed to be more like the type of testing you will see down the line in medical school. The standardized aspect applies not only to the people you meet, but also to the questions you get asked, so you see another potential benefit. You definitely have to be a bit quicker on your feet to handle this type of interview, but I thought it was a lot of fun. After having gone through this process and the standard interview process on the same day, I'm still not sure that I prefer one over the other, and both clearly have positive aspects and negative elements.