Canadian fellowships

PREFACE: (hopefully goes without saying) You must be a Canadian citizen/PR to do a Canadian residency.

The first hurdle to getting cardiology is to get a position in internal medicine. After three years of training, there is a R4 match during which all the internal medicine residents try to match for further training.

In 2009, 118 IMGs ranked the 25 internal med spots. There were a total of 601 IMG applicants to internal medicine, but only 118 were actually interviewed.

Once you're in internal medicine, I have no idea how competitive cardiology is, but I'm going to guess VERY COMPETITIVE.

Best plan for now is to do electives in the hospitals you hope to match and get great LOR. Apply widely (consider also family medicine if you could be happy doing that) and I think you'd be crazy not to apply in the US.

In terms of doing internal medicine abroad and then doing the cardiology fellowship in Canada, that does not seem to be a good option at all. However, doing cardiology in the US, and then returning to Canada is a theoretical possibility (best to check with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada to find out what the requirements are to return; usually these involve writing the Canadian Royal College exams in the applicable area and sometimes doing an additional year of training).

Do NOT waste your time or money applying to Canadian Residencies or Fellowships, interviewing, writing MCEEE, MCQ1 or MCQ2. Canadian Physician regulators are some of the most arrogant jerks in the world and will lead you on, give false hope and treat you like a criminal.

Instead go to the generous United States, take USMLE and apply for US Residencies and then Fellowships. US and State Regulations are more open, transparent and less costly. In addition the knowledge and physicians that you will meet in the US will be more advanced and the technology cutting edge.