Preparing to Match in CaRMS (Before Knowing What To Match Into)

This is a quick follow-up on the previous post. As I said, part of the anxiety about choosing a specialty is the fear that by the time you figure out which specialty you want to match into, you won't be a competitive applicant for that field. It'll simply be too late - all the other students who figured out this was for them will be too far ahead of you.

Here's the thing: the way CaRMS works for most programs right now, what you do in pre-Clerkship barely matters. Being involved in student groups or student leadership doesn't make much of a difference. Doing volunteer work doesn't make much of a difference. Since all of English-speaking Canada operates on a Pass/Fail system, pre-Clerkship grades don't matter (so long as you pass). Awards, scholarships, and other forms of recognition are nice, but won't make much of a difference.

Research can have an impact, but mostly for the highly competitive specialties. Some programs don't look at research at all. Others look at it, but it's such a minor factor that it won't matter for most applicants. Still more do consider research as a reasonably large component of their evaluation scheme, but their threshold for doing well in that category is pretty low - doing any sort of research in any field will largely satisfy the research component of their evaluation. Even for programs that do put an emphasis on research, who are asking for a project done in their specialty, this can be accomplished in third year - for example, a case study can go a long way.

Point is, even though research can matter, not having it in pre-clerkship, before you've figured out what you want to do, isn't a death sentence. If you want to do, say, Dermatology in Toronto, then yeah, you might lose out to the gunners who have been pushing for Derm since M1. Yet, for the vast majority of specialties and programs, there's nothing that must be done in pre-clerkship to be a competitive candidate.

My greatest fear coming into medical school was that I wouldn't have control over my own future - that I'd slip up somewhere and have to settle for a career in medicine I didn't want. Like many incoming med students, I searched high and low to find the steps I could take to maximize my chances of getting whatever residency I ultimately wanted. I pursued many activities to show that I was a productive, intelligent student, beyond the demands of school itself. I wrote papers, gave presentations, organized extra-curricular educational sessions, and helped plan nation symposiums (side note - are you a pre-med in London the weekend of August 22/23rd? The Western Student Ultrasound Symposium could use an extra volunteer or two! :p )

In all honesty, I could have sat on my butt these two years and largely ended up in the same spot.

That's a good thing. It means I had the flexibility to pursue activities I found valuable or interesting, rather than just the activities that would have affected my chances at a desired residency spot. It also means I could defer making a final selection about my specialty until I have more perspective, which I hope to get in Clerkship.

Bottom line is that it's alright to use your ECs to explore your interests, without worrying whether they'll be optimal when it comes time for residency applications. Chances are they won't matter much anyway.