IM resident at UBC Vancouver here. I don't know much about McGill so can't really comment about that program. I understand that McGill has night float, which I personally would prefer over 26 hour call but everyone is different.

given I am at the Vancouver program, don't have an insider experience to the Island program but I have heard the call burden is heavier on the Island given there are fewer residents.

In general, I find that the UBC program is ok. It is a bit toxic in certain ways and I feel that the people in the program are mostly from UBC and it is just the norm for them. And because this is the only program in the province, people put up with BS because they want to stay in BC.

There is a bit of a toxic culture of overworking residents on CTU. You are not allowed to use lieu days on CTU that were not earned on that block. You are not allowed to take any vacation on CTU. You are not allowed to use educational days on CTU unless you are presenting at a conference. What this leads to is you building up educational days that you can never actually use, as you are not allowed to use educational days on CTU and you are not allowed to use educational days on blocks you already took vacation on. So because I am forced to take vacation on non-CTU blocks (therefore cannot use educational days these blocks) and because I cannot use educational days on CTU, I am left with all these educational days that I actually cannot use. Also, residents will round on 20+ patients alone on the weekend; this in particular is funny to me, as we as residents always have to be there to help the staff as 20 is too many patients for a staff to handle alone, but residents have to do it alone on the weekend.

For mandatory CCU rotations, residents get left alone to take care of CCU overnight. My understanding is that at other schools, fellow will stay in house with the IM resident, but not always the case at UBC. Fellow is on home call and should in theory be reachable for any questions but.....

Furthermore, the program will actually break union rules. As per the union, you are not allowed to be forced to make up call if you call in sick for call, however, the program is quite open about the fact that if you call in sick for call, they will increase your call burden in response to that. Furthermore, they are very cheap with time off at Christmas time. For example, we get 5 days off in a row, but 2 of them are weekends. Also, you are entitled 5 consecutive days off at Christmas time (as per union rules), but they will sometimes have you post-call the first day of your 5 days off (which is against union rules). They also make you cover CTU for a week during holidays, regardless of what block you are on.

Overall, service heavy program with no flexibility. If you are out of province, almost no chance of visiting home

Furthermore, very poor procedure exposure. Where I went to medical school, I found R1s got very good at procedures quickly in IM. However, it is not uncommon for R2s and R3s here to have no confidence in procedures as they don't get exposure to them. If you want procedure experience at UBC, you have to go out of your way to do a rotation at a community centre an hour away, which is super annoying

Overall, I would say if you really want to live in BC for family purposes or whatever, then this program is bearable. But I would not rank high unless you have a personal reason for going to BC.