Emerg competitive changing?

[ShelbySham]

Hmm..I know that 5 yr- Em was pretty competitive back in the day...but im wondering how that's playing out now...

it seems that most of the people who want emerg, want the 3 year CCFP (EM) simply because when it comes to knowledge, both are pretty equal when it comes to working at community hospitals as well as some big citiy hospitals...which makes sense...why work 5 years when you can get 3?

any thoughts on this? in your school do more people want the 3 or 5?

[Ian Wong]

I think a lot of people go after the 3 year program simply because of practical reasons. Two years less residency, and two extra years of an attending's salary is pretty huge if you invest that money and allow it to compound through to retirement. For those individuals who aren't going to be working in the huge tertiary-care hospital in Montreal/Toronto/Vancouver (where they may only hire EM physicians who have completed the five year residency), the 3 year program will allow you to work wherever you want.

In my med school class, while 3 people matched into the 5 year FRCPC EM residency, there were certainly more than 3 people who were going to go into Family Medicine and then pick up the CCFP EM 3rd year option.

One nice thing about the 5 year program is that once you match into it, you're done. There's no guarantee that there is a CCFP EM spot waiting for you after you graduate from your FM residency. You are also better placed to go into academic EM, do research, or otherwise get into all the other administrative areas of EM and the hospital with the full-fledged 5 year residency behind you.

Ian

[leviathan]

How competitive is the CCFP EM program? How do they evaluate those who apply?

[UWOMED2005]

Hmm. . . good question.

I know the 5 year program had one of the worst ratios of people ranking it #1 compared to number of spots. It was even worse than Plastic Surgery - which is kind of unusual.

I think it's reasonably safe to assume at least a few of those who didn't match to the 5 year emerg will want the CCFP-EM program in 2007. . .

[moo]

The 3 year thing is one of the options I am considering and the great thing about it is that if you burn out or get sick of EM you can always just open up your own clinic or do some locums. My understanding is that you can't do that with the 5 year program because you are not CCFP certified. Of course you could always go back to do the FP residency, but that would mean one more year at least.

[endingsoon]

The 5 year emerg program was very tough to match to...I think only 1 person in our class acutally matched to it this year.

I think the biggest advantage to the 5year is if you want to work in a big teaching/academic hospital. Usually the docs are the 5 year guys and not the 3 year fam-emerg docs. Otherwise, the fam-emerg route is just fine.