Attending Medical Conferences & CARMs Applications

[BigM]

Hello,

I was hoping that someone could advise me on this. I am going to be heading into first year at Schulich in September but I am working for a public health agency for the rest of the summer. This weekend I am going to be attending the Canadian Association of Emergency Medicine conference in Montreal and I was wondering if there was any way that I could get credit for this. I believe I have read that when you shadow physicians as a medical student it is put on your Dean's Letter which becomes part of your CARMs application. Does this letter also include attendance at conferences (there are accredited sessions at this one). I will not be giving any presentations at the conference. Is it possible to get any kind of academic credit before startign medical school (I have officially been accepted to the class of 2014 but I don't believe I will technically be MS1 until September) and if so, who would be the best person at the school to contact for this?

Thanks!

[crush]

Hi BigM,

Congrats on your acceptance to UWO! The Dean's Letter does NOT include any observerships/shadowing that you do, or any conferences that you attend or present at, so no need to contact anyone. If you would like to, you can put this on your CV that you can submit to CaRMS, but I don't think many people put conferences attended where they're not presenting on their CV's (at least I certainly didn't).

Enjoy your time at the conference!

[BigM]

Hi BigM,

Congrats on your acceptance to UWO! The Dean's Letter does NOT include any observerships/shadowing that you do, or any conferences that you attend or present at, so no need to contact anyone. If you would like to, you can put this on your CV that you can submit to CaRMS, but I don't think many people put conferences attended where they're not presenting on their CV's (at least I certainly didn't).

Enjoy your time at the conference!

Very helpful, thank you crush!

[ploughboy]

Ya, it'll never show up on a Dean's Letter and shouldn't be on your CV. On the other hand, you should highlight it in your CaRMS personal letter in four years time to demonstrate a commitment and longstanding interest in emergency medicine (eg "I have been interested in emergency medicine even before starting medical school, and have attended CAEP for the last x years" or some such thing).

[BigM]

Thank you for the feedback ploughboy!

[ploughboy]

Did you enjoy CAEP? My liver hurts...

[BigM]

Did you enjoy CAEP? My liver hurts...

It was a great conference. Unfortunately I missed most of the plenary sessions but I was able to attend a good number of presentations that didn't require much in the way of previous emerg medicine knowledge. Also kept the drinking to a minimum as work was paying me to be there :D

It did feel a bit ackward being so much earlier in the game than other people (I didn't meet a single person who wasn't at least in clerkship). I struck up conversations with a few cute girls to soon discover that they were all well into residency and probably at least 6 years older than me :eek: . I am beyond terrible at guessing ages...

[ploughboy]

It did feel a bit ackward being so much earlier in the game than other people (I didn't meet a single person who wasn't at least in clerkship).

Not necessarily a bad thing to be ahead of the curve, especially if you're an emerg keener. Now that you've seen what sorts of projects can be presented as posters at CAEP, you might want to keep you eye and brain open for possible research projects when you're at UWO. Or if you're an uber-keener, you could try and get elected/selected to one of the student positions in CAEP (if that sort of thing is your thing) sometime in the future.

On the flip side, I didn't do any of that stuff and somehow still got in. FRCPC EM is semi-competitive, but not nearly as bad as ophtho/derm/etc. It's also good to keep an open mind about what you want to specialize in, especially in first year.

Cheers!

[ploughboy]

I struck up conversations with a few cute girls to soon discover that they were all well into residency and probably at least 6 years older than me :eek: .

Two words: sugar mamma.

[BigM]

Two words: sugar mamma.

I'm going to have to set up my own physician recruitment service. "Looking for a blonde, single attending physician to sponsor a lowly medical peon. Free back rubs included."