CaRMs (Canadian Resident Matching Service) is a process that anyone who has applied for medical residency in Canada is very familiar with. Through the CaRMs electronic application process and matching service, candidates apply for postgraduate training in their chosen specialties. Basically, candidates submit online applications, reference letters, personal letters, and any other required information to CaRMS, and then choose the schools and specialties they’d like to apply to. Candidates then wait patiently to hear from programs for invitations to interview. Once the interview period is over, which often involves travel across the country, it’s time for candidates to rank the schools and programs they want. The programs rank the candidates that they have interviewed and also submit their rank to CaRMs. Then, based on these ranks and through some magical process, the CaRMs matching system spits out where you’ll be completing residency and what you will be doing with the rest of your life. This happens on the long-awaited MATCH DAY.
For anyone preparing for CaRMs interviews in the future, I’ve listed some of the questions I was recently asked during my interviews for Family Medicine. Keep in mind that depending on the school and program, the interviewers may not have seen your application, so often they won’t know things about you unless you tell them. My interviewers at Dalhousie University had access to my personal letter only, so I had to remember aspects of my application that I thought was important to share.
Sample CaRMs Interview Questions for FAMILY MEDICINE
Why do you want to be a family doctor?
Tell us why you’ve applied to our program, and what has brought you to this decision.
Talk about a patient that had an impact on you.
Give an example, either through personal experience or clinical experience, of empathy and what that means to you.
Give an example of how you have been creative, either in your personal life or in medicine; or tell us about an achievement that you are proud of.
Share an experience where you were a team member and you had to deal with conflict; how did you deal with it and what was the outcome?
Tell us about yourself.
What do you feel are the positive aspects of family medicine?
Give an example of a difficult patient that you have had to deal with; how did you manage and what was the outcome?
What do you feel are the negative aspects of this specialty?
Do you have any questions for us, or is there anything we haven’t covered that you would like to share about yourself or your experiences?
MATCH DAY is MARCH 9, 2009.
Good luck 2009ers!!
Photo: MUN Med Class of 2009. White Coat Ceremony 2005.
