Canadian IMG student applying to US and Canada

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Hi, just a few questions if anyone can help.

Do any residency programs in canada for internal medicine look at your USMLE scores? I know theres an option to enter them in Carms so if you have double 99s does that increase your chance of matching and if yes, by how much?

How closely do residency programs look at MCCEE scores? Do they have cutoffs for interviews or if you score a 400 (99) does that boost your chances immediately?

If you are applying to both Canada and the US match, and you only have the luxury of 2 electives which will get you 2 letters, does it hurt your chances in Canada if you have only 1 canadian letter and 1 US letter (from a reputable US university based hospital)? How much better would it be if you had 2 Canadian letters?

Hi bigtymer.

Did you apply for both US and Canadian match in 2009? How was it?

I am an IMG from Europe, live in Canada, and plan to apply both to CaRMS and NRMP/ERAS this year. What I don't quite understand is the statement
on http://www.carms.ca/eng/ERAS_intro_e.shtml:

'ERAS. CaRMS acts as the Dean's Office (DWS) for Canadian medical students and graduates ONLY applying to positions in the United States.' Is this your case?

What about the IMGs? I suppose that I will have to use both NRMP and ERAS when applying for the US match and CaRMS for applying for the Canadian match. Do you know if there is a cooperation between CaRMS and NRMP/ERAS for IMGs (like CaRMS sending electronic copies of the received documents to ERAS or so?)

Then, it seems that the deadline for submitting the LoR to ERAS is 1. August (http://www.ecfmg.org/eras/2012-timeline.html), vs. mid November for CaRMS. I find it a little bit strange, as the references for electives/observerships done after July won't be taken into account. Is it right?

Are electives/observerships/references from US mandatory, if one also applies to NRMP, or are the Canadian ones good enough?

Please tell me about your combined application experience, any tips?

Thanks.

Michelle

well, of course nobody would know about all the residency programs, I think it depends of the hospital you are applying.
I'm not sure if you have the USMLEs taken (and passed) you'll be elegilible for a residency in carms... I read something about it, but not sure.
Anyhow, for Internal medicine in my province I've seen besides the MCC exams, they look for ACLS as an asset
.Again, local connections are worth more than any non-local letter....
Hope it helps

J

I thought MCC exams were taken in the spring of fourth year, so how would programs look for this in residency apps?