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.

T - 6 days to Match Day!

Just a quick update today.

Currently, we are busy getting the details of our "toolbox month" sorted out and we are waiting with keen anticipation to find out who will be part of our first group of residents that will be joining us.  One thing that I've learned over the past month is that I am not too good at playing the waiting game...

There's quite a snow storm in the area tonight.  Be safe.  Spring is just around the corner now!

Happy Groundhog Day.

It's very hard to believe that it's already February.  I'm not sure what the groundhogs will be predicting about winter later on this morning although with the winter we've had... is there a way they can predict -6 "more" weeks of winter?

What I think we can predict after finishing our four days of CaRMS interviews is that we are going to have some great learners matched to our program for our inaugural year!  I know that all of us QBOL interviewers found these CaRMS interview days to be a very positive experience.  In particular, it was quite heartening to see the amount of genuine interest in our site.  We've been working hard to prepare the best learning experiences we can for our incoming QBOL FM residents and are really feeling energized now to push towards the finish line... or is that the start line ahead?

In addition, I'll share a link to our videotaped morning presentations in case you wanted to relive the drama of the information sessions.  Otherwise, feel free to contact me and we would be happy to send you some of our materials (e.g. PDFs of the slide presentation or a copy of our Colourful Curriculum Calendar), get you in touch with some of our community contacts, or answer any further questions you might have.

It was truly a pleasure to have the chance to meet with so many great candidates, to hear about the variety of paths you've taken to FM, and to learn about the many strengths that you already have to share with us - not just us at the QBOL site, but as future colleagues in FM.