Welcome to “A Leap of Faith” a blog/diary by McGill medical student, Robert Sternszus about applying for a medical residency. To obtain a residency position, students must work through a matching service that provides an open and transparent process. But it is also gruelling, providing equal doses of dramatic and comic moments.

A medical leap of faith: making the right career choice

Robert is applying for a residency in pediatric medicine. He agreed to write a blog about the experience partly to relieve the stress and also as a meditation on what he has learned as a medical student and his aspirations as a physician.

Coordinated systems for managing residency applications exist in many countries and function in similar ways. In Canada, the matching service is called CaRMs for Canadian Resident Matching Service. Medical students apply to the schools they want to attend and following a process of interviews and mutual evaluation, they are ultimately matched for a residency position at one of 17 medical schools across the country. The CaRMS stops receiving applications on December 1. During the National Interview Period (January 24 to February 15) students are interviewed at the schools where they have applied. Both the students and the Faculties then submit their ranked choices to CaRMS. Then on March 9 the CaRMS computer spits out a match.

It sounds simple, but it is, in fact, a series of choices or as Robert calls them, leaps of faith. First each student must choose a specialty. Then they must decide where they want to apply; decide what they want to include in their applications and personal statements.After the interviews at each of the schools, they send their priority list to CaRMS, knowing that at the same time the schools are submitting their preferred choice of students. Then they wait, while simultaneously preparing for their final exams for Match Day on March 9.

Join Robert as he goes through each step of this process and send him comments to help keep his spirits up.

CJAD Radio interview, December 13, 2008 (mp3)