Hi, few questions if you wouldn't mind.

[G for Greta]

Hey there, long-time reader, first-time poster. Did I do that right?

Anyway, I'm interested in pursuing a career as a physician, and have been doing a fair bit of research on the topic, but I do have a couple questions that I haven't seen answers for here:

First of all, are there any major differences between the American and Canadian systems of application to medical school? By that I mean, do we weigh GPA, or MCAT score, or EC's much differently than they do? Do EC's, for instance, matter much less, or MCAT much more? I haven't seen anything to indicate that across the board there are major differences like this, but I'm none the less curious about it because pretty much all I've been reading is American material.

Second, about shadowing. My father is a general surgeon. I spoke with him about shadowing in the past, and he says never seen it happen at our local hospitals, nor even really heard of it. He believes that due to the consent issues it would be impractical anyway, as patients would not want just anyone to be hanging out as a surgeon, in his case, is performing an operation or visually examining them. However, I read about shadowing being a very valuable thing for medical student applicants to have on their resume, and being in my position -- so closely connected to numerous physicians and dentists -- I wonder if maybe there's something dissimilar in this case between Canadian and American systems, or what?

Also, as an aside, I live about 5 minutes away from Laurentian University and, more importantly, the Northern Ontario School of Medicine. Are there any NOSM students on this forum? I'd be interested in hearing what your experiences there are like.

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[AspireAdmission]

In general, there is not a lot of difference between Canadian v.s. American medical school admissions. You need pretty much the same set of pre-req courses. You need good to excellent GPA and MCAT scores. It would be nice to have some research and volunteer experience too. Some might say that some Canadian schools might have more of a hard number (GPA and MCAT) cut-off's before inviting applicants to interview v.s. some (like McMaster) who might put a lot of emphasis on extracurricular. Regardless, these differences should be minor. Your GPA and MCAT scores build the fundation of your application anyway, on either side of the border.

About shadowing, there is usually an office in the hospital that handles volunteer. If your hospital doesn't have one, your dad can always ask an administrator above him. Usually volunteers need to undergo some confidentiality training and sign a few paperworks. That's not uncommon.

 

[coastal]

try premed101.com/forums

it's the Canadian SDN and you'll get alot more help there.

cheers.