shooting my own foot.

last night we had a CaRMS information seminar put on by the SOM. our speaker was Sandra Banner who is the executive director and CEO of CaRMS. she basically talked about the process of matching and going back to canada once we're done, and what our chances were according to the stats.
i found it to be quite useful.
between this and the international students night a few weeks back, i'm feeling the love from UQ. it actually seems like they care!

now i know i shouldn't be complaining but... sandra had mentioned that the results on the MCCEE (medical council of canada evaluating exam) - the exam that all doctors who studied outside of canada have to write, is not always indicative of getting a residency spot. as a matter of fact, canadians studying abroad (CSA), tend to do worse on the MCCEE than say foreign doctors looking to immigrate to canada. however CSA, statistically speaking tend to have a better chance at matching. off the record, sandra went as far as to suggest that there may be some bias in favour of CSAs. yes. this is a good thing for me. BUT, if we're going to use the MCCEE as a measuring stick, shouldn't we stick by it?
there could be other legitimate reasons as to why CSAs have a better chance. these might be less quantifiable. for example, perhaps (in general) our english is better. perhaps we're younger & less likely to have families and hence have more flexibility in terms of where we go and what we do. or maybe we're able to connect with the interviewers better through common topics like... how much the leafs suck, how bloody cold it is in january or how there's nothing to do in the prairies (yes. that includes alberta). ;p
overall, the seminar was informative and fairly positive.

the only sore spot on the night was this complete tool that was sitting in the back asking questions. it wasn't the questions that he asked, but the way he asked them. he was bordering on belligerent. i thought sandra gave us a great talk and was incredibly helpful. he was just being ultra aggressive and unnecessarily defensive. i blame his faults on his parents. tsk tsk. it's unfortunate because it's idiots like him that are the most vocal and in the end he's a reflection of the canadians at UQ. worse part is that he introduces himself as being from toronto when he's actually from BRAMPTON. for all of you aussies out there, i assure you that he is not representative of canadians. nor of torontonians. he MAY be a correct reflection of bramptonians. i'm afraid i don't know enough people from brampton to confidently comment though. ;)

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slightly related, i have a friend in 4th year from toronto who has decided that he's going to stay here. he's been offered an internship spot in wollongong in new south wales (about an hour outside of sydney). this doesn't seem like such a bad option. although his circumstances are slightly different from mine, i can see where he's coming from.

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let's bash on surgeons some more. my third year peer tutor told me these two:
how do you hide $50 from an orthopedic surgeon?
you put it in the patient's chart.

how do you hide $50 from a plastic surgeon?
you can't.