Something interesting I heard from a resident a couple weeks ago....
So I met a resident in internal medicine in the elevator the other day and she had a McGill pin on her white coat. Me, after having visited McGill like 6-7 times before, quickly fixated my eyes on the pin and started a conversation with her, asking about working visa in the US, etc. But unfortunately, she could not really answer my question because she had already been married to an American at the time she came down to the US for residency. So her situation did not apply to me.
However, she later asked me if I am thinking about going back to Canada for residency later on after graduating from my American med school. I was like, "only slightly, because no Canadian program will take me" (or at least, I don't want to feel like second-class citizen, even though I am Canadian, having to match in the second round). Surprisingly, she said that that might not be the case. She is not 100% for sure, but apparently, at McGill, they supposedly (this is a hearsay of course) have 4 Orthopedic spots available for American/international graduates and yet only 1 ortho spot available for the rest of Canadian grads to fight over (again, so that McGill can continue to spread its reputation in the US when these residents move on later). She then said, the bottomline is to call up every residency director whose program you are interested in, and verify how you will proceed in the match (or like in McGill case, is there any spot set aside for you already). So maybe, not all is lost after all! Of course, I cannot prove her story to be 100% true and I am too lazy to actually call residency directors up on my precious vacation time, but it is something to think about.
