Education Update

CaRMS SUCCESS FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF MEDICINE

This year’s CaRMS match was a resounding success for our Department of Medicine and Internal Medicine (IM) as a specialty. Nationally, IM is the second most popular first choice specialty amongst all Canadian Medical Graduates (CMG) with 16% choosing IM as their first choice. Overall there were no IM positions unmatched in the entire country with a few students not able to match as their first choice. The supply/demand ratio this year was 0.98. Over the last 8 years this ratio has been declining from a high of 1.2 to the current lowest value. No longer are there unmatched positions in IM (high supply/demand ratio). This is the new reality and not just a blip in the data as there has been a gradual decline in this ratio over time.

Our local Department of Medicine did very well in this year’s match. Of the entire Year 4 cohort at the University of Saskatchewan, 16 (15.7%) of students chose IM as their first choice. This number has steadily increased over the past few years: 12.6% in 2020 and 10.6% in 2019. Of the 16 students, 9 matched within Saskatchewan and 7 to other provinces.

This resounding success is a consequence of a strong team of faculty and administrative support. Our admin staff in all sites are supporting our student's needs and allowing them to focus primarily on education. Huge accolades go out to all our faculty involved in undergraduate teaching. Your commitment to education and fostering an amazing learning environment is leading to this success.

The new Year 3 clerks will be starting on the wards very soon. This cohort was affected significantly by the pandemic and had a stop to in-person clinical teaching in their pre-clerkship year. As a result, they may need a little refreshing at the start of clerkship. This cohort will also be increasing their EPA requirements. They now need to complete EPA 1 through 6, inclusive:

EPA 1-Obtain a history and perform a physical examination adapted to the patient’s clinical situation

EPA 2-Formulate and justify a prioritized differential diagnosis

EPA 3-Formulate an initial plan of investigation based on the diagnostic hypotheses

EPA 4-Interpret and communicate results of common diagnostic and screening tests

EPA 5-Formulate, communicate and implement management plans

EPA 6-Present oral and written reports that document a clinical encounter

These activities do not need to be exhaustive. For example, what is the differential diagnosis of anaemia; interpret a CXR; how do you manage hyperkalemia?

Year 2 clinical skills will resume in-person format and there is work in place to likely have a hybrid in-person/virtual format for our foundations courses. Stay tuned for more information on this as we #stickittocovid!

Thank you all for your amazing teaching and dedication to our students. You are all great teachers and your efforts are clear in the success of our CaRMS match.

Dr. Rahul Mainra