Calling all Canadians

I posted the following in another thread already....


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 itinerary). 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 because she is in internal med and was not interested in ortho at all back then) 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 there could also be spots OUTSIDE the match for people to grab. On the other hand though, McGill is an anomaly among the Canadian schools in many ways

 

I know an American resident in Internal med here. Graduated from UMich, and going back South for a hemonc fellowship. As for Ortho, I think it will be pretty tough, as the "international spots" in a lot of McGill residencies are tied up with contractual agreements with countries such as Saudi Arabia. SA's government pays the resident's salary (and maybe a bit to McGill as well), and McGill effectively gets free labor. Probably not impossible to get a spot, but I'd definitely call around to get the whole story.

 

Your explanation sounds plausible!

Are you a Canadian or American? In 3rd year of med school?

Cheers!

 

I'm an American in my 3rd year. Planning on heading back stateside for residency. You?

 

Is the American Quota written anywhere on the web? I did not know that such a thing exists (other than what the resident told me).

I am a Canadian who is studying in an US med school. Nope, I don't have either American greencard or citizenship. So that will cause a hassle later on when I need a job visa during residency. But most likely, I will stay in the states for residency regardless. Back then I was debating between doing med school in Canada v.s. US. There is a working visa advantage for people graduating from American med school as opposed to Canadian med school (this would not apply to Americans since they don't need "working visa" to work in the US). So I chose the US med school and this is kind of like, once you choose a path, you just have to go straight down that road to the end.

Part of my concern back then was also that specialty spots are very limited in Canada due to government regulation and emphasis on primary care. I did not want to have my future specialty choices limited. In the US, every med school would have somebody (whether as few as one or two) match into every specialty, regardless of how competitive the field is. However, that does not seem to be the case for Canadian med schools simply because specialty spots are limited. For instance, with only 5 derm and 14 ENT spots every year across the country, not every school can afford to send one person into that field. Furthermore, the match stats does not suggest that there is a superstar school in Canada that would give you a definitive advantage in the match. In the US, there are some schools with the necessary reputation to work the match to your advantage.


http://www.carms.ca/stats/stats_index.htm

 

Hi The Pill Counter,
You are VERY good at finding stuff on the internet. Those are excellent and interesting info. Thanks a bunch! That will also allow me to clarify the situation to my McGill-trained resident when I bump into her in the hallway next time.

I took a look at it, and it appears that Canadian grads from Canadian med school or US LCME-approved schools will be in the same category, under the regular entries category on that website. So that will be through the CaRMS. The only question is "would Canadians grads from US LCME-approved schools be automically dropped to secondary itinerary?" The CaRMS website indicates that such decision will be up to the individual residency director. But dropping Canadian grads from US med schools into the second iteration might be the norm rather than the exception.

http://www.carms.ca/procedure/us_students.htm

nevertheless, all of these are interesting stuff. It is not as straight forward as most people thought it was (as the plot thickens......).

 

I actually emailed CaRMS some time ago, when I was getting worried about going to an american school. They told me that people who graduate from any LCME-accredited school can enter the 1st round of the match.

 

I will take the middle route.

The way I read it is that US students and IMG's are both eligible to match in the first iteration but depending on how the program directors rank you, most likely you will drop to the second iteration.

 

about the ortho position at mcgill, i am currently at usc and i remember that one of the profs told us about a student who was matched to ortho at mcgill last year.