Allow Me to Be a Pain... Length of Time...

[Jocelynk]

I was wondering what path did you take to go into surgery? How long did it take you to complete your schooling?

My general [and unfocused] plan is to finish med school to become a GP... At which point, I'm assuming my youngin' will be off to highschool. Remain practicing as a GP, then once my youngin' graduates highschool, continue my education to become a surgeon... Preferrably a cardiac surgeon.

Sorry for the run-on-ness and dull tone... And spelling mistakes. I'm in one of those brain clouds at the moment.

[TimmyMax]

Hey,

General surgery is a 5-year residency (ie: extra years AFTER you finish 3-4 years of medical school). That doesn't include fellowships, which will add on an extra 1-2 years. I think that cardiac surgery is a 7-year program, but I'm not 100% on that one.

[Kirsteen]

Hi there,

Regarding a cardiac surgery training program, you can enter it one of two ways: 1) direct entry into a 5-year cardiac surgery program; 2) entry after 2 years of a Gen. Surg. program, where the cardiac training is another 3 years. (At the beginning of medical school I toyed with the idea of cardiac surgery.)

Cheers,
Kirsteen

[Jocelynk]

Thank you very much :D

[marbledust]

Just a small correction: the direct entry cardiac surgery program is 6 years in length :)

[Blake]

I'm not totally sure, but I think CT fellowships after general surgery residencies range from 2 to 3 years in length. Or maybe the 2 years option is limited to the US (I've had an attending who'd been through this path) ?

[Kirsteen]

Hey there Blake,

You and marbledust are referring to two separate types of Cardiac programs (and you're both correct). :) The direct-entry programs are six years in length whereas the fellowship-type programs that commence after a few years of General Surgery are three years in length.

Cheers,
Kirsteen

[Kiel]

Hi there,

Regarding a cardiac surgery training program, you can enter it one of two ways: 1) direct entry into a 5-year cardiac surgery program; 2) entry after 2 years of a Gen. Surg. program, where the cardiac training is another 3 years. (At the beginning of medical school I toyed with the idea of cardiac surgery.)

Cheers,
Kirsteen


How competitive are these programs?

[Kirsteen]

How competitive are these programs?

Hi there,

I'm not sure anymore given the relative decline in the size of CV Surgery bailiwick, i.e., because Interventional Radiologists and Cardiologists are scooping some of their patients.

Probably one of the best sources of information for this is the current CaRMS website. Have a look at the Cardiac Surgery programs and see how many folks applied over the years, and how many received interviews, etc. That might help you gauge.

Cheers,
Kirsteen

[Kiel]

I was looking into the number of seats for each program/university on the CaRMS website and was unable to find this information. Cab somebody give me the link for these statistics?


thanks alot:D

[Kirsteen]

Hi there,

If you look at this (http://www.carms.ca/jsp/program.jsp?path=../jsp/../program_new/quota/qcardiac) Cardiac Surgery program summary page, it lets you know that this year, there are supposed to be 9 spots available throughout Canada. If you click on each program description within the left sidebar, you will see in the top right-hand box, how many people were interviewed in previous years within each program.

Lastly, if you go to the CaRMS statistics page, you will see how many people chose Cardiac Surgery as their first discipline and the percentage who successfully matched to their top choice program as well as discipline.

Cheers,
Kirsteen

[Blake]

Hi there Kiel,

here's some info concerning cardiac surgery (from CARMS website : statistics report).

% students matched into first choice (being cardiac surgery here) :

2006 : 100 %
2005 : 64 %
2004 : 47 %
2003 : 78 %
2002 : 46 %
2001 : 100 %
2000 : 47 %.

It differs a lot depending on the year, and I'm taking a wild guess here, but I think the abysmal match rates could be due to a reduced number of residency spots. Let's say there's on average 8 new interns in cardiac surgery a year. In 2006, maybe programs offered 12 places. In 2004, that number could have been down to 5 places or something. Not the greatest of logic, but I'm interested in hearing other opinions. Besides, having a first choice specialty doesn't automatically mean ranking all the programs in the aforementioned specialty. Maybe there are only 3-4 programs that are worth ranking or whatever, hence the high discrepancy between match rates. We could go on and on...

[Kiel]

Hi there Kiel,

here's some info concerning cardiac surgery (from CARMS website : statistics report).

% students matched into first choice (being cardiac surgery here) :

2006 : 100 %
2005 : 64 %
2004 : 47 %
2003 : 78 %
2002 : 46 %
2001 : 100 %
2000 : 47 %.

It differs a lot depending on the year, and I'm taking a wild guess here, but I think the abysmal match rates could be due to a reduced number of residency spots. Let's say there's on average 8 new interns in cardiac surgery a year. In 2006, maybe programs offered 12 places. In 2004, that number could have been down to 5 places or something. Not the greatest of logic, but I'm interested in hearing other opinions. Besides, having a first choice specialty doesn't automatically mean ranking all the programs in the aforementioned specialty. Maybe there are only 3-4 programs that are worth ranking or whatever, hence the high discrepancy between match rates. We could go on and on...

Thanks Blake. BTW, where did you get this information? I am interested to see what other specialties are like.

thanks for your replies.:)

[Blake]

http://carms.ca/jsp/main.jsp?path=../content/statistics/statistics/st_2006

click on any year you want (to the left). Match reports are just above that.