CaRMS match question

[cclau]

Hi all! I am a newbie here, and I have a quetsion about CaRMS match. Do most graduates of 1 medical school match into residencies affiliated to that school? e.g. do most UBC students match into hospitals in Vancouver?

[Ian Wong]

That's a hard generalization to make, and it probably will vary with each med school. Some schools aren't particularly large, and therefore won't have as many home residency positions available as compared with say Vancouver or Toronto. You would expect more students from these schools to end up elsewhere for residencies.

With that said, of all the UBC residency spots out there, by a significant margin, there are more UBC grads filling those spaces than from any other med school. The fact that as a UBC student you have much more "face to face" time with UBC residents and program directors versus outside medical students, goes a long way to helping UBC med students match into UBC residencies.

Of course, there are still a large number of UBC residents who came from other med schools, but on a proportion basis, the medical school that puts the most number of grads into UBC residents is UBC itself.

Ian
UBC, Med 4

[Carolyn]

I'd agree with Ian but say that within Ontario there is a lot more moving around... Likely given the geographical component.

[UWOMED2005]

I posted the match numbers for the 2002 UWO class. The leading school to match to was UWO, but only 27 of the 96 people matched to UWO. 24 matched to U of T, and I can't remember off the top of my head but I believe Mac had about 15, Ottawa about 10, Queen's about 6 and the rest of the country mopped up the rest. So it's extremely variable.

One thing I have noticed though is that people do tend to match the "ultra-competitive" specialties at the schools they did their MD at the same school. For example, I believe the one person who matched to Optho and two who matched to Plastics last year matched to UWO. . . and I believe almost all of the Optho residents did their MD at Western. But even that isn't a steadfast rule as the person who got into Derm matched at U of A.

[Ian Wong]

Here's a table put out by CaRMS answering just that question posed above. These numbers are based on the most recent CaRMS match of 2002.

www.carms.ca/stats/pgy-1_2002/table22-geographic.htm (http://www.carms.ca/stats/pgy-1_2002/table22-geographic.htm)

For those medical schools which also have extensive post-graduate residency programs, a large proportion of those med students do their residency in the same city.

ie. 107 of 160 Toronto graduates stayed in Toronto. 57 of 100 Edmonton graduates stayed in Edmonton. 79 of 120 UBC graduates stayed in BC.

For some of the other schools, it's clear that most of their graduates end up going elsewhere for residency.

ie. Only 8 of 69 Queens grads ended up staying in Kingston for their residencies, with 18/69 going to Toronto and a further 10/69 going to Calgary.

Ian
UBC, Med 4