Kevin's McMaster Medicine Page
Kevin's McMaster Medicine Page |
Updated Feb. 18/2000 Table of Contents Section 1 - Questions about 2nd year and selecting rotations Section 2 - Reviews of various sites
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Q. When should I do my Family Medicine Rotation? A. As always, this is an opinion. Generally, the major determinant of when you wish to do family medicine is whether you wish to do a PGY-3 year or apply to one. If so, it might be a good idea to stack your electives early so you can do power electives and get "good" references if there is such a thing. It is probably not critical but please realize that most PGY-3 spots at McMaster are determined by December/January and so (like the Carms nightmare) you need references, applications and resumes by September. Otherwise, 2nd year at Mac is a breeze. Other than a 2 month stint of
in-house call (Internal Medicine), you have no hard call. In fact, you do
6 months of family medicine and unless you have the (mis)fortune of selecting a
gung-ho, workaholic preceptor; you will get off relatively unscathed. Finally, let me be perfectly honest. I found that my learning in 2nd year was mostly independent at the family medicine level. Indeed, the PGY-2 at MUMC FPU is the workhorse of the team (although this may change if the staff start having more clinical days). Having said that, I felt ready for the task and I can't think of too many people that I killed in the last little bit so that must be good - right?
Q. I don't know what electives/selectives I'm doing? A. Relax guy! Unless you start with your elective in July, you don't really need to know what electives you'll be doing. Just put some ideas of what you might be interested in on the application. The program doesn't set it up for you anyways so they are interested for academic reasons for the most part. I wouldn't recommend it, but you can even set up your elective 1 week in advance (like I had to when a pre-set one fell through). It is certainly NOT rocket science.
Q. What if I change my mind about an elective? A. NOT a problem. Just let your elective supervisor that you're going to bail on know (out of courtesy - or not if you truly hate him/her) and set up a new one. The Dep. of Family Medicine should be informed when you have things settled simply because they need to send a list of your rotations to the ministry. You know, the guys that are paying our salaries.
Q. What if I don't know which community doc I want to work with? A. Well, here is a dilemma. The program will try to set up your community family medicine rotation for you so they need a bit of time to do this. Having said that, they didn't set mine up until April/May so you can probably change your mind and select other people in the interim. If there is somebody you definitely want to work with though, get in there early. Confidentially, I did not select which community docs I wanted to work with until March.
Q. Do you have a list of the community doc's I can choose? A. Actually, Pearl Dodd just gave me a complete list of the community docs. This is the same booklet as they send out to you in your second year. You can find the list on the web at the following address.
Q. Do you know of an accountant that specializes in MD/resident accounting/taxes? A. The name of the accountant who comes to Mac to give us an incredible talk
is Marnie Mackay. I have her pamphlet/talk posted at: Personally, I use an accountant up in Markham. His name is Timothy Chiu and he does a fair number of MD tax returns/accounting up in the Toronto region. He came recommended from my family doctor. Generally, expect to pay $150-200 for a professionally prepared single return if your tax details are fairly simple (ie: PGY1 - salaried). QUICK TIPS: - your PGY-1 year taxable earnings is roughly 13,000-16,000 which means you are in the 17% tax bracket. That means you might want to delay claiming RRSP contributions so you get a bigger bang for the buck - your tuition, some application fees, license/car, loan interest, etc... are tax deductible (refer to brochure)
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Q. Do you have any suggestions of good places in Hamilton
or Burlington for electives or the community based family practice rotation? As for selecting the community rotations, they should have given you a
He uses a computerized record system, (Purkinje) which is the same system used at North Hamilton and is part of the COMPETE research project spearheaded by Dr. Anne Holbrook at St. Joe's Hospital. He also takes on clerks and his knowledge is good and up to date. He attributes this to the fact that the clerks/residents coming through often challenge him but whatever the reason, I did not find any significant faults with his practice pattern. It's a friendly laid back site and if you are looking at setting up shop in the region, Dundas NEEDS docs and it has a good demographic population. Dr. D. Rosenthal (Dermatology, Hamilton) - Don does 1/2 day derm clinics at McMaster FPU 1-2x / month but he also does clinics/consultations the rest of the time as well. He is an excellent teacher and has an incredible sense of humour. I seriously suspect that he would do well as a comedian in another life... But them's the breaks. I would NOT hesitate at all in recommending Dr. Rosenthal for a derm elective but be forewarned, book him MONTHS in advance. He's that good of a teacher/clinician.
From other reviewers
Dr. A. Byrne (Surgery, Oakville) - I did an elective in surgery with Dr. A. Byrne in Oakville. He was fantastic. His lumps and bumps clinic is thrusday afternoon, however, and it was unfortunate to miss out on this. The anesthetists in the hospital were pretty good about letting me intubate our cases. Call was once a week and one weekend a month. It was home call (even from Hamilton). - Kargel
Collingwood - I'm currently doing my 2 month
community block in Collingwood and would highly recommend it! Great
example of what GP's do outside of "the city". Although the area is
not underserviced the people here are keen to have residents. -DeSantis Dr. Onlock (Family Medicine, Barrie) - I
just got back from my two - Ferguson |