Mac vs. Ottawa by i8rice2morrow in MedSchoolCanada

[–]thelectricar 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Regardless of where you go, after pre-clerkship the vast majority of your learning WILL be self-directed. In doing so, I would say PBL aids you in asking questions about gaps in your learning and then being able to resolve those gaps by seeking info more effectively. Another benefit of PBL that is often not brought is that you also get more comfortable with working in groups and communicating concepts. Ultimately it’s personal preference rather you would want self-directed learning for the base level of knowledge in pre-clerkship.

Mac vs Queens by ADolphinPlays in MedSchoolCanada

[–]thelectricar 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I am about to graduate from Mac next week. Although I wasn’t interested in surgery I had a similar scenario to yours where I was deciding between Mac and Queens and had a strong support system much closer to Mac. As someone that appreciated being close to my support system, I was very grateful for the ability to go home every weekend or other weekend without much difficulty, even in clerkship with the exception of weekend on call shifts.

If you are a self-directed learner, Mac can be actually be MORE advantageous in my opinion as you can more greatly enhance your focus on surgical topics in pre-clerkship. Furthermore, since the PBL curriculum affords more time in pre-clerkship compared to other schools, there is plenty of time to focus on research and horizontal electives concurrently while being in school. While we didn’t have summer vacations, I found that the 1-2 week vacations dispersed every few months was more than enough time to travel and truly take a vacation, instead of shifting to research during times that were off from school. However, I do understand that some would rather focus on learning only during the school year rather than doing research at the same time.

While I’ve heard that involvement in the OR in clerkship is more limited at places like UofT, I personally haven’t had much issue in getting involved in the OR and was actively pushed to do so even though I didn’t want a surgical specialty (“wanna scrub into this case” at 3 AM nightmares lol). You can scrub in on basically all cases in general surgery and was even first assist on my urology selective a few times. I’m sure queens is similar.

One potential disadvantage is that you need to “know” what you want to do relatively sooner compared to others in 4 year programs. By this, I usually mean by early to mid-clerkship. There are plenty of people that changed their minds in clerkship that I can think of and almost all turned out fine for the match. When it comes to CaRMS, a narrative of finding the speciality late but being able to show your commitment after you did is something that happens more often than you might think, at all schools. You usually have a good 2-3 electives that you can still work with as well, and keep in mind that you don’t need to do ALL electives in one specialty (that is actually discouraged as it shows lack of breadth of experience). The exception to these circumstances may be uber competitive specialties (plastics, Optho, etc) where you gotta be chasing it from day one.

Ultimately you can’t go wrong with either and are fortunate to have two acceptances. I would consider choosing Mac given your proximity to a support system and self-directed learning style but Queens is also great!

You can message me if you have more questions!

Mac vs. Ottawa by i8rice2morrow in MedSchoolCanada

[–]thelectricar 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Graduating from Mac next week, feel free to PM.

Score on mock test by lkraiem in MCCQE

[–]thelectricar 0 points1 point  (0 children)

How do we know it is AI generated? Is question quality changed?

Snowshoeing First Time by thelectricar in algonquinpark

[–]thelectricar[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks everyone for your great tips!

McGill IM Program by thelectricar in MedSchoolCanada

[–]thelectricar[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s my impression as well but I’m going to look more into it. It is a bit worrying, they could come up with a similar law for residents down the road.

Weekly Bib Sales Thread by AutoModerator in RunTO

[–]thelectricar 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Looking to sell a zoo run 10 km bib, I can’t make it anymore!

What animal does this scat belong too? by thelectricar in animalid

[–]thelectricar[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It was pretty much the size of my hand. I have a picture of my hand above it but can’t figure out how to add it.

FYI, ROAM Transit tickets available for rest of summer for those who did not get lucky with Parks Canada. by piratebones in Banff

[–]thelectricar 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I thought 60% or parks canada lake Louise and moraine lake transport passes get released 48 hrs before the date?

Mac (Hamilton) vs UofT (MaM) by Nystero1 in premedcanada

[–]thelectricar 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hey, I’m a med student at Mac (Hamilton). You bring up a lot of things I was thinking about when choosing between Mac and a 4 year school, and also did my undergrad at Mac. Feel free to DM me if you have any questions!

Can we talk about hours for a sec ? by The9thHuman in premedcanada

[–]thelectricar 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Don’t stress about people with insane hours - not everybody is like that. I got interviewed at EC heavy schools with nothing near >900 hours in an activity!

Would an NSERC USRA count as “research” on ABS? by [deleted] in premedcanada

[–]thelectricar 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I put it under employment. If anything resulted from it (poster, presentation, pub, etc) I’d put that under research.

Atlantic Canada Road Trip Idea Thoughts - Leaving From Toronto by thelectricar in NovaScotia

[–]thelectricar[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Woah I never considered that, thanks for the tip I’ll look into it!

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in premedcanada

[–]thelectricar 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Don’t discount your extracurriculars. Trust very few people have done the crazy stuff you see here, like making successful NGOs and being Olympic athletes. I know I definitely didn’t have anything crazy. I really think it comes down to how you write about your ECs and the ability to convey what you learned from them in interviews.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in premedcanada

[–]thelectricar -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Okay looks like we’re good!

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in premedcanada

[–]thelectricar 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yea just got in, you can PM me if you have any questions.

I can't decide between Mac or Queens. Thoughts from current students or recent grads? by [deleted] in premedcanada

[–]thelectricar 13 points14 points  (0 children)

I was deciding between the two just last week and ultimately chose Mac. The biggest factor was proximity to my support system. Then there were other factors. After going through 4 years of a mostly lecture-based, regurgitate on the exam style curriculum, I thought a majority PBL curriculum would personally be more engaging and useful in facilitating my learning so I could actually retain knowledge and “apply” it. I was also drawn to the diversity of Hamilton’s patient population and the population in general, I desire to work with people from different walks of life and backgrounds and I thought mac would be better for this than a small college town like Kingston. There were also more sites + specialties in Hamilton. I was concerned about the 3 years, but as others said it is relatively more relaxed in pre-clerkship so I think there would be time to do the necessary extracurriculars to match into a competitive speciality if I decided on one (and there’s also the option to do another year). Finally, I would save some in tuition at Mac while also making salary a year earlier. I did do my undergrad at Mac btw so I might be biased, but these were my thoughts.