Fiesta Week in Oshawa June 17-23, 2012

This time, let's try a non-medical post.  This is just a quick "head's up" for anybody who will be in the Durham area over the next week that Fiesta Week in Oshawa kicks off with a midday parade on Father's Day followed by a concert and then a week-long cornucopia of various cultural meals and local entertainment in multiple community centre pavilions all over the city. 

If this has whet your appetite, here is a link to their website: http://www.fiestaweek.ca. 

I'll just paraphrase the famous slogan by way of warning, "Fiesta Week: Tastes Great, Very Filling."

And who says this is the "middle of nowhere"?  ;)

Getting ready for summer.

We're now into June and, instead of heading towards the lazy days of summer, it is a veritable beehive of activity here as we ready for the arrival of our first eight residents.  Excitement is truly in the air!

We've repurposed the blog a bit as well as put in a nice summer photo of the lakefront that is pretty typical for Durham Region along the header here.  This blog will continue to provide information about our curriculum and communities as well as keep you abreast of highlights of the current activities of our residents and our site in general.  I have added a link (under the Web Links section to the side) which will now take our preceptors to a separate "invite-only" area to help support our faculty as we move forward.

Our toolbox month is shaping up nicely although it seems like a month might not be able to contain all of the great early residency learning experiences that we would like.  We shall see!

Doctor's Day 2012

Embarrassingly, I didn't realize that yesterday was Doctor's Day in Ontario until I received a notice from the Ontario College of Family Physicians well into the afternoon.  However, through this notice, I learned that May 1st was chosen as it was the birthday of Dr. Emily Stowe who became Canada's first female physician in 1870.

It still seems to be a fairly low key affair - it was difficult to find a nice description of Doctor's Day.  Here's a little news release from the OMA (It seems the first annual Doctor's Day was just last year which I find a little odd since we've been in Ontario a bit longer than a year...).  Sometimes I think we, as a profession, could do a better job educating the public about the various roles that physicians play in supporting the health of individuals and communities - especially those roles beyond direct patient care.

I think we will just have to make a point of really celebrating Doctor's Day next year!

Eight is Great!

Great news!  We received our second round CaRMS results today; our three remaining PGY-1 spots are filled.  This gives us our full complement of eight first year "pioneer" residents starting this July.  We are very pleased with the quality of students who have matched with us in both rounds.

I honestly can't wait for our site to "go live" in a few months!

Again, I want to let the many people who expressed strong interest and enthusiasm in our site know that there were many unbelievably strong candidates in the second round making it extremely competitive overall.

 

2012 CaRMS Second Round Interviews

Interviews are now underway.  Second round applicants who were selected for interviews should have been notified by now.  I look forward to getting to know you in person or through my fellow interviewers over these next few days.  I must take the time here to formally thank all of my fellow preceptors and administrative staff in Oshawa and Kingston who have assisted our site through this second round process.
For unsuccesful applicants, I offer my condolences.  There are so many very strong candidates, it's unfortunate there are not more spots available to offer.  The applications are reviewed in multiple steps by many Queen's Family Medicine faculty; it is definitely not a "one man" process.  However, from the files that I directly handled, it was often little things - not enough reference letters, small unexplained gaps during training or since completing training - that tripped up an application relative to the others. 

2012 CaRMS second round update

This is just a quick update as it's been tremendously busy.  It's heartening to see that there is still strong interest in our site and appreciation for the type of training we are going to be offering to our residents.

The CaRMS files for our second round applicants are currently being reviewed in Oshawa and Kingston and candidates chosen for interviews should be contacted this week.

Let me end with a quick reminder to myself to address Jann Arden's "middle of nowhere" comment regarding Oshawa when I find some time this week...

"Expect the unexpected."

I had no idea how true that was when somebody tried to brief me about the CaRMS process.  We were expecting to match with our highly ranked and strong learners who have that "pioneer spirit" as we head into our first year as a site.  And we did.  Let me welcome our initial group who have matched here - we truly are ecstatic with our group so far!  Unfortunately, there's just not quite as many signed on as we had hoped - we have three unmatched QBOL spots at this time.

I could insert some cliches about spilled milk, the sun tomorrow, silver linings, and the like but I'll just say things are what they are and we'll make the best of it.  I do believe that things happen for a reason so we will make the best of the opportunities that present in the second round of CaRMS as we try to complete our first group of residents.

If you are an applicant who is heading into the second iteration of CaRMS for Family Medicine, please refer to the CaRMS website for the instructions and timeline for the second iteration.  I hope you make the most of your opportunity as well and good luck.