Informal CaRMS session with the 1T0s

[DevonTurner]

Here is the e-mail I sent out to the class. Feel free to share/discuss!

Devon

Hello Everyone!

I hope this e-mail finds you well. Thanks to those of you who were able to come out to the informal CaRMS talk hosted by the 1T0s last week. For those of you who were unable to make it, there were 40-50 1T1s who attended, and it was a fairly low-key but interactive session, with candid questions and candid answers. Nothing was prepared beforehand; that is the panel responded only to the questions and we kept them going for about an hour and a half!

A few of you requested a summary of the evening, and that is what is included here. The event was not recorded and it wasn't transcribed verbatim; the informal nature of the session wasn't really amenable to that, so Melissa and I instead chose to send out a summary of some of the main messages that came through.

Who was on the panel: several 1T0s who had just finished the match process. The following specialties/locations were represented:
- Family Medicine: Toronto and McGill
- Internal Medicine: Western
- Gen Surg: Toronto
- Ortho: Toronto
- Ophtho: Toronto
- Obs/Gyne: Toronto
- Paeds: University of Alberta
- Pathology: Harvard

Summary of the evening:

ABOUT THE CARMS PROCESS:

1. Lots of information can be accessed about CaRMS, the CaRMS process, and program information from the CaRMS website: www.carms.ca. This website is accessible year-round and contains information about all of the programs and the application process. Many of the questions that were asked during the session can be answered by checking out this website (this is especially great if you have program-specific questions). One of the reasons that this is such a great site to check out is that when you ask a panel of students who matched to different specialties, the summary of the answers generally ends up being "it depends". That is, what is true for family medicine is not true for ophthalmology when it comes to application requirements; the CaRMS site gives program specific information. Also, it is good to familiarize yourself with this website early, as it is going to be one of our best friends next year. Another reason to start familiarizing yourself early: the 1T0s mentioned that although the application isn't due until December-ish, certain sections open up as early as June, so taking a stroll on over to www.carms.ca might not be such a bad idea. (Have I emphasized myself enough?)

2. Couples matching: this was asked, but the answer given was anecdotal; one couple matched together, another couple chose not to match together and ended up in separate locations.

3. Interviewers do not have access to the list of programs that you have applied for, but for many students, elective choices may give them hints.

ABOUT THE PRE-CARMS PROCESS AND GETTING ONE'S DUCKS IN A ROW:

4. Electives: many students had questions about electives; "what should I do them in", "where should I do them", "who should I do them with". Overall, the answer was: it depends. But I'll try to flesh that out a little more into something meaningful.

4a. What to do your electives in: Firstly, we need to determine what our electives are going to do for us. If they are for career exploration, then it is straight forward: do the elective if you think it will help you rule in or out a specialty (e.g. doing an emerg elective in your third year is a good idea because we don't get our rotation until fourth year). If you have an idea of what you want to do when you grow up, then electives serve a secondary purpose of allowing you to explore the program in a different location, for example, or to help get a letter. They also serve a tertiary purpose of allowing you to demonstrate to the program directors that you have an interest in that area. The 1T0s seemed to think that doing electives in the field you are interested in is important for "high profile specialties"; ophtho, ortho and gen surg were some specific examples that our panel mentioned. In other areas, like family medicine, it is actually considered to be less valuable to spend too much time doing family medicine electives; it would be better to broaden your exposure by seeing things that might be relevant to a career in family practice (whether it would actually be detrimental to one's application to do many electives in family medicine was not clear, I imagine it wouldn't disqualify you or anything). The real message, though, was being able to defend what you chose to do your electives in. It seemed that many of the 1T0s on the panel (keeping in mind the specialties they represented) were asked to defend their choices of electives.

4b. Where to do your electives: this question was a little less clear. Carol Bisnath, from the Career Services branch of the OSA, who attended the meeting, strongly recommended doing at least one elective outside of Ontario. The rationale for this was that if you are passionate about a specialty, you need to demonstrate that you would be willing to go anywhere to do it (even if you aren't, it seems), and that doing an out-of-province elective is one way to do that. It seemed from the panel, especially, that the 1T0s were grilled about being from Toronto; they were often asked to really show that they were genuine about their interest in applying to non-U of T universities. Perhaps by doing electives outside of Toronto, we can help to demonstrate this (keep in mind, program directors only see your 3rd year electives but may ask what you did your fourth year electives in, or what you plan on doing your fourth year electives in). At the end of the session, the only clear messages that came through were this: 1) doing an out-of-province elective is not a bad idea, so we should do one/some. 2) be prepared to defend your interest in non-U of T programs.

4c. Who to do your electives with: the subtext of this question is really "is it important to do electives with big-wigs/the big cheeses/andy smith(haha)". The answer: not surprisingly, it depends. The student going to ophtho mentioned that he genuinely thought it helped to have big-wigs as his referees. If doing an elective is the only way to get these people to write a letter, then so be it. Students from other, perhaps less competitive programs, were less adamant that big-wigs were necessary. It seems this question will never be fully answered. What did come across was that it is important to get letters from people who "know you". Personally I don't know what this means from a 2/3/4 week rotation, but that was the general feel of the panel. A holla-back to the first tip in this letter: go to the CaRMS website and check out the various reference letter requirements that the programs have to mentally prepare yourself for the hoops through which you will have to jump.

5. Letters: With letters (holla-back replaaay: check the CaRMS website for specific requirements), the general recommendations of the group were to ask as many people as possible to write letters for you as you feel you might need. You can ask them to write multiple letters for you if you think they would be willing (i.e. if you are applying to different locations/programs and you think the content of the letter might change). The group also felt that it would be wise to be as organized as possible with this; give your referees as much information as you can (i.e. your CV) to help them write the letter, and do so as early as possible. When you go away on elective, if you can bring the CaRMS reference letter forms with you (on the CaRMS site as of June-ish, apparently), then that might be a good idea, especially if it is an international elective. One important feature to note is that it appears that referees submit their letters to CaRMS, but then we have the option to select which application their letter goes to. That way, if we know one referee said he/she would write a great letter for an Ottawa application, you can preferentially select that their letter goes only to the Ottawa application. This is unconfirmed from my personal experience obviously, but this is what the panel was preaching. This is a big difference from med school apps, so I think it is worth pointing out. Like med school apps, though, we cannot read the contents of the letter.

Summary:

I'll try to lay this out in as straightforward a way as possible:
1. Go to the CaRMS website soon and familiarize yourself with the programs and the process as much as you can. It will be helpful.
2. Go to the Office of Student Affairs and talk to Carol Bisnath about your application at some point during the CaRMS process. She can offer a lot of insight.
3. Start thinking about CaRMS early. Some of the panel members scrambled, and they generally felt that if they could avoid scrambling, it would have been great.
4. The CaRMS process is (apparently) very well described, and students are very well guided through it. Still, it helps to have some key areas well organized. The big one that was mentioned was for reference letters.

That all! I really hope this helps clarify some things. I imagine it created more questions than it answered, but hopefully its a start on this exciting process we are all about to go through (together!)!

Your pals,

Devon and Melissa

[jesspage]

Wow, thanks guys!

This is helpful info for 1T2's, as well.