All Posts Tagged With: "medical school admissions"
Binge drinking at U. Ottawa, Liberals & mental health
What students are talking about today (February 1st)
Kirti Poddar/Flickr
1. Nothing gets students more riled up than when you try to curb unhealthy binge drinking. The University of Ottawa proposed banning shots and limiting beer pitchers to groups of three people or more, but is reconsidering after a backlash from students. Anne-Marie Roy, spokesperson of the Student Federation at the University, told CBC News that the bars they run on campus are safe for students and that such restrictions would hurt revenues. (Not to mention the fact that students would probably just go somewhere else if they wanted shots or pitchers anyway.) Speaking of drinking, a new study shows that too much alcohol leads to Type 2 diabetes in rats. Just saying.
2. The federal Liberal leadership candidates are touring campuses. Justin Trudeau spoke at Brandon University in Manitoba on Thursday where he talked about broadening the party’s support and creating jobs. Marc Garneau was at the University of Prince Edward Island earlier this week where he told The Cadre he would help solve joblessness through a tax credit to employers who hire young people and capital gains exemptions for angel investors who invest in a start-ups.
3. At Queen’s University, where recent deaths caused a rethink of mental health services, The Journal reports that accessing Health, Counselling and Disability Services is difficult for people on certain schedules like those in the School of Nursing who work long days. The regular hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday to Thursday and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Friday. However, HCDS director Mike Condra has stepped up, saying that while evening and weekend appointments weren’t popular when offered in the past, students are welcome to call to try and arrange alternative appointments.
4. A pair of former students who tried and failed to sue the University of Toronto for $80-million for giving them failing grades can try again reports the National Post. Houman Mortazavi and Mojgan Yousefi, a married couple, had enrolled as doctoral students in the university’s Department of Economics in 2007, but repeatedly left Canada and flew back to Iran to visit an ailing relative during the semester. After much back and forth, the university issued them failing grades.
5. The University of Saskatchewan’s Faculty of Medicine’s council has voted in favour of changing the entrance requirements for medicine to make every applicant complete a four year degree before applying, reports CTV. The school currently accepts some students with as little as two years of study, but the faculty director of admission says students take advantage of the system by taking many easy introductory level courses in those first two years to boost their marks.
Rx: Get out of town
Moving may boost the odds of medical school admission
Kyla Adams (right) teaching first-aid in Whitehorse. Richard Lam.
From the 2012 Maclean’s Professional Schools Issue, on newsstands and iPad now.
It has been a long road for 33-year-old Kyla Adams from her high school years—when there was no question in her mind that she’d one day become a physician—to today, when the British Columbia native feels she finally has a decent shot at medical school.
In Adams’s second year of university, the academic and social stresses of life at the University of British Columbia caught up with her and she flunked out of school, temporarily shelving her ambition. After several years of selling running shoes, travelling and working as a personal trainer, Adams wrote the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) at the age of 26. She surprised herself with a decent score, which inspired her to enrol at the University of Victoria, where she earned a double degree in biology and earth sciences. She rewrote the MCAT, boosted her score and applied to medical school.
But the rules had changed. She was no longer allowed to drop those crummy decade-old marks from her application as she had thought. She applied to UBC’s medical school and didn’t get in. She applied again, and was rejected again. She applied a third time. No luck.
A doctor by age 24?
It may be possible at Queen’s in 2013
Photo by Andrew Tolson
Queen’s University may soon allow gifted high school graduates to enroll in a six-year program that would offer them a Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree by the time they turn 24-years old.
The Accelerated Pathway to Medical School program received faculty approval on May 4 and will be considered at Queen’s Senate in the fall.
The length of medical school has long been debated. In English Canada, students must complete three or four years of undergraduate education before applying to four-year medical programs.
Fierce competition means that most students who get into MD programs already have four-year degrees. Indeed, many have master’s degrees, which take one or two years more to complete.
