FRCPC or CCFP-EM? This is a question that EM physicians spend a lot of time discussing with their mentees. Why are there two EM designations in Canada? What do the letters even mean? What’s the difference? Which route is right for you? These are great questions. Unfortunately, as with many important decisions, you’ll probably get as many answers to them as people you ask. Everyone in the Canadian EM world seems to have …
Post-game: The CaRMS Rank List
Even after CaRMS interviews are over there is a lot of “stuff” to do. Should you send a thank you note to the programs that interviewed you? How is the program going about making their CaRMS rank list? How should you go about making your CaRMS rank list? Should this change if you’re entering the couples match? And what really happens if the unthinkable occurs and you go unmatched? This post will cover these topics and more.
Game Time: The CaRMS Interview
This is part two of the CaRMS Trilogy and will focus on CaRMS interviews. See Pre-game: CaRMS Interview Preparation and Post-game: The CaRMS Rank List for discussion of other aspects of CaRMS and the full CaRMS Guide for the complete series of medical student mentorship posts. There are generally three parts to the CaRMS interview: the social, the tour, and the interviews. I can speak best to the FRCPC-EM tour because that is the one I …
Pre-Game: CaRMS Interview Preparation
It’s that time of year again. The references are in, the applications are complete, interviews have been accepted, flights are booked and medical students across Canada are preparing themselves for the rigamarole known as CaRMS that will determine where they will be living for the next 2-5 years and what kind of medicine they will be practicing for the rest of their lives. All you can do now is some CaRMS interview preparation.
Choose your own Adventure!
When I became a medical student, I was astounded by the number of opportunities available. The more I looked, the more awesome things I found. My interests in policy and leadership development led me into a number of roles with my medical student society and a summer working in the Canadian Medical Association Leadership in Medicine office as an intern (program now sadly defunct) were the highlights. These experiences led me to discover …
Do what you love, love what you do
Junior medical students get a lot of information from senior medical students. They have just gone through the system so it makes sense that these students would seek out their advice on everything from how to study to how to prepare for residency match. Generally, that advice is good. However, there is one statement that drives me crazy no matter what it is about. It goes something like this: You have to do THIS to get …