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FRCPC or CCFP-EM: What is best for you?

In CaRMS Guide, Mentorship by Brent Thoma28 Comments

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 …

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Routes to emergency medicine practice following a Family Medicine residency

In CaRMS Guide by Gaibrie StephenLeave a Comment

Believe it or not, CCFP graduates provide the majority of emergency care in Canada. I don’t mean CCFP physicians with an emergency medicine (EM) designation – I’m referring to regular non-EM family physicians. From the very northern settlements of Canada to southern border cities, family physicians have been working in emergency departments since their earliest days in Canada. This begs the important question: what is the value added through a recognized college competency …

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FAQ About Medical Student Electives

In Mentorship by Brent Thoma5 Comments

This is a topic for which the “how to” seems to be passed down from senior to junior medical students and never written down. I remember being pretty clueless about this process when I went through it. I was a relative late-comer to the Royal College EM sweepstakes, having decided to pursue that program only during the summer before fourth year. This was compounded by my inability to plan anything in advance, ever. I …

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Tiny Tips: Canadian CT Head Rule

In Medical Concepts, Tiny Tips by Omar Anjum1 Comment

“But Doc, I didn’t hit my head THAT hard” Computed tomography (CT) scans are frequently performed after a head injury to rule out acute intracranial findings. However, most Emergency Department patients with a head injury have no acute CT findings. The Canadian CT Head Rule (CCHR) was developed to help clinicians determine when to order a CT image for patients with minor head injury.1 In 2010, a multi-centre prospective trial implemented the CCHR and …

National Rounds | Diagnostic Reasoning: Should we trust our gut?

In Education & Quality Improvement, National Rounds by Jonathan Sherbino3 Comments

5On May 24th, 2016, Dr. Jonathan Sherbino (@sherbino) of McMaster University was invited to speak at Grand Rounds at the University of Saskatchewan on the topic of diagnostic reasoning. His presentation explained how physicians think of a diagnosis and how we can teach learners cognitive strategies to improve their diagnostic reasoning. This blog post has taken that wisdom and (hopefully) captured it in blog post form as the first blog edition of CanadiEM National Rounds. Misdiagnosis… The Boogieman …

10 Tips from Nurses to Rock Your EM Clerkship

In CaRMS Guide, Mentorship by Claire O'Gorman4 Comments

There are lots of ways to prepare for clerkship, like finding mentors, reading up, and making learning goals, as outlined in this past post. While those tips will help you maximize your skills building and demonstrate your professional competencies, it’s also important to use clerkship as an opportunity to learn how to work as part of an interdisciplinary team within a complex health care system. There is growing recognition that quality care and …