This is a transcript for the interview we had with Dr.Carine Haggar, the program director of ER medicine at McGill university. The podcast was published on sept 14th 2020.
You can listen to the podcast on :
https://anchor.fm/saudimdcanada/episodes/Applying-to-ER-medicine-ejkgng
Mostafa:
Hello, everyone, and welcome to a new episode of our podcast. This is Mostafa al-Habboubi er resident at McGill University.
As a resident in any program, you need a good structure to help you to thrive and reach your goals.
an integral part of each program is the program director. It is always good to have a supportive program director. And today I have a very special guest, Dr.Carine Haggar who happens to be my program director. And she’s here today supporting our podcast and to give us advice on application to the ER program at McGill University. Welcome to our podcast.
Dr.Haggar:
Thank you very much. Happy to be here.
Mostafa:
We are happy to have you too. So, we will start as usual Dr. Haggar by asking you to introduce yourself to our listeners if you don’t mind.
Dr.Haggar:
Sure. So, as you said, I’m Carine Haggar an ED staff physician at the McGill. So covering the Montreal general and the Royal Victoria hospitals. I have been a staff physician for almost 20 years now. Graduated from McGill University with the five year frcp program. And I’ve been program director now going into my eighth year.
Mostafa:
Thanks, and I hope you continue to be the program director.
So Dr. Haggar First, let’s talk about the structure of the ED program at McGill. And the reason I’m asking is, as a resident here, I know that we are five years residency program, as opposed to for example, Saudi, which has a four years program, and us, which is three or four years program, depending on the university.
Dr.Haggar:
Yep, so the program is a five year program, it has been for a long time, we are one of the oldest programs in North America.
The structure, it’s recently changed a little bit with the onset of competency based education. But basically the five years is to really try and increase the expertise for residents. So it’s four years of pretty intense years of training. And then there’s also an extra six months area of interest or area of expertise that people can enhance their skills, as well as the new transition to practice a six months where you would be basically working as a junior staff going into practice potentially later on.
Mostafa:
Thanks. So let’s make it to the area of interest. And I know McGill is good in some of the areas that are of growing interest for emergency medicine.
Being a resident here, I know for example, ultrasound is an area of interest. So you’re saying if I finish my 4 years, I do my Royal College exam, and then I have six months to focus on kind of honing my skills to be better in a specific filed, is that what you’re saying?
Dr.Haggar:
Yes, six months or six periods, per se. And this can be extended if you are willing to take no electives. So if they wanted to do up to nine periods in an area of interest, so it could be ultrasound, could be sports med could be administration, could be research, it could be any number of things. We’ve had people do all kinds of different areas of interest in the past.
Mostafa:
Nice. That’s pretty clear. Thank you. So before we get into the selection process, we’re close from the interview season, and I’m sure you’re getting the CVs from all applicants. How many Gulf states residents Do you take every year?
Dr.Haggar:
On average, in the last few years, we’ve been taking three per year.
Mostafa:
If you know, overall Canada, how many gulf states citizens get accepted?
Dr.Haggar:
To be honest, I’m not sure I know. There’s only a few, maybe three or four other programs that take them. But I couldn’t give you the exact number.
Mostafa:
So getting back to the CVs. So how do you process the CVs that you receive so you choose your candidates for the interview?
Dr.Haggar:
It’s a little different with the Middle Eastern residents comparing with CARMS residents, because we don’t have as many residents applying.
and it’s a little bit harder because it’s not necessarily always a face to face meeting. So basically we go through the CV, we look at what the student or the resident has done in the past in terms of you know, showing interest in emergency medicine and whether or not they’ve done electives.
It’s always good. Also, if you have reference letters that come from people who are in emergency medicine, just because, you know, it shows that you are, in fact, showing interest in that specialty. research in the area as well as also a good thing. It’s not an absolute, but it definitely helps.
Strong Reference letters is something we look at as well. And then you know, we always try to get some information, speaking to people that may know them.
That’s sort of the good start. And then we, from there, well, we have a panel of to myself and residents, we read through the CVS, and then we sort of come up with questions. And then if someone’s very weak, we may not interview that person, but someone’s sort of average or above average, because then we’ll interview and then we’ll ask questions at the interview and try to find out a little bit more about that candidate.
I’ll get into more details, if you don’t mind. The reason is, I imagine some of our listeners may be interns or in medical school
Mostafa:
What is the weight of the GPA and the MCCQE score is there is a minimum score, or the more we get you the better or you don’t look at the score, per se.
Dr.Haggar:
Now we do look at the score. So it is actually important only because we it’s very hard to compare medical schools in the Middle East versus here. So the standards may be a little bit different. So it’s hard for us to know, even though you might say that you’ve done very well, it’s hard for us to know, you know, for sure, because we can’t really, we don’t have ways to verify as much. So for us the MCCQE is more of a standard score. That doesn’t mean that if you don’t do great, it’s bad. But if you’re failing or if you’re on the lower side of that, then it’s more of an issue. So we might look at someone who’s a bit scored stronger. But again, it’s also an overall package. So you know, just because you’ve scored stronger if you’ve done well on that, but nothing else, that doesn’t mean that we would take that person either. differently.
Mostafa:
For recommendations, I think I understood from what you’re saying it is better if you have recommendations from people who were in the program, or at least have Canadian training, as opposed to people from other countries, did I understand correctly?
Dr.Haggar:
Well, that helps for sure. But at the very least the reference letters are to be from someone in emergency. It doesn’t necessarily have to be someone who came to McGill or better staff person working in the emergency, because they sort of understand what it takes and what’s important in a resident for emergency medicine. So what they would say, would maybe bear more weight than someone who’s completely non emergency medicine.
And also, Yes, for sure, if you have somebody that knows us that can sort of, you know, give a little bit of a more backstory that always helps to but it’s not essential by any means.
Mostafa:
Just what about clinical electives? We always have room to do electives, if someone wants to come in to, of course, now it’s COVID time but in general, to do an elective? Would you recommend this? Would this help more to know the person and maybe get more chances for acceptance?
Dr.Haggar:
I think for sure if they’re able to do an elective at McGill, it’s a great thing we’ve had in the past some shadowing programs. Obviously, this is all very limited right now. But we’ll see what happens as things improve with COVID over the next year. But definitely if we get to know the person and we sort of can corroborate who they are and everything that for sure helps, as opposed to having just someone on paper that you’ve never met before.
Mostafa:
With regards to clinical experience, let’s say you have two candidates, one who’s a fresh graduate, and another who is in an emergency training program, let’s say second year. Would this make any difference for you?
Dr.Haggar:
Again, it really depends on the overall package and who the person is and what they’ve done. I think having had a little bit of clinical experience definitely helps me see the difference when somebody comes, who’s had some kind of clinical experience, sometimes too much is not good either. Because then you get sort of your own way of doing things. And then it’s hard sometimes to adapt to the way that we do things.
So I can’t say that it’s one specific thing that we look at or like it’s for sure that if you have done something more that you’ll get in. I think it’s again, showing interest, being keen. Having good package overall, all is more important than one specific thing.
Mostafa:
I think you mentioned the major things with regards to assessing CVs. Let’s get into the interview now, you have your candidates, how does the interview process happen?
Dr.Haggar:
So the way it’s been done the last few years, it’s via Skype, or I guess now, probably on zoom.
We have a panel. So it’s myself and often the other Middle Eastern residents who are in our program currently from R three and above, we basically discuss with the interviewee, will ask questions, and then we also give them a chance to ask any questions.
Mostafa:
Do the questions include the clinical knowledge?
Dr.Haggar:
No, not so far. Anyway.
Mostafa:
Perfect. Okay. So what are your recommendations for the interview process?
Dr.Haggar:
You know, it just makes a stressful situation. Maybe even I would say, more stressful, that’s it’s online, you’re not seeing the person in front of you. I think I would say, try to be relaxed as much as you can, obviously, it can be harder said than done. Try to have some answers. So some of the things that we’ve seen in the past where people will ask questions, and they have very short answers, or, you know, they don’t have a lot of insight into the question that we’re asking. So think about the questions that we might ask that you would maybe come up with an answer for. It’s nice for us to have a conversation with the person so we get to know them a little bit and see who they really are. And so if it’s just a very short answer, it’s not going to help us get to know the person better. So having a more elaborate answer to some of the questions that we may ask definitely helps.
Mostafa:
for the ones that get into the interview, is it what you do in the interview that will get you accepted or it’s your whole dossier plus the interview?
Dr.Haggar:
It is the whole dossier plus interview. The interview is important for sure. And you know, it tells us a little bit more about the person and you know, because sometimes on paper, it can look like one thing and then you meet the person and it can be very different.
But we really look at the whole file. We try to tell how strong are they academically? How are they, as a person, personality wise? Well, they fit in the program are not
Mostafa:
Like any other program, you know, you get some candidates that are not accepted, and I’m sure they may wonder if they want to apply again, what would be the advice for them in general?
Dr.Haggar:
Um, I think it’s okay to apply again, I have no problems with we’ve had people who have done that and then we’ve accepted them a year later, no harm in doing that. And it’s up to you in terms of, you know, person to decide how long they want to keep trying or at some point I think if it’s not working then I would say try a different venue. But there’s no harm in applying a second time for sure. And we’ve got several people that applied the second time and got in.
Mostafa:
What if the candidate wanted to have kind of more personalized advice, would the program provide that? Like what should I focus on myself for the next year when I apply to the program, how would they be able to get these answers?
Dr.HaggarL
Sure. I mean if that is the case if someone wants specific advice on there performance, sometimes it can be hard to say I mean sometimes we just have to choose a candidate but it always can be discussed with the residents that were at the meeting or with myself.
It could be sent by email and we would have some pointed advice
Mostafa:
fantastic Okay, I think we covered most of the things Dr.Haggar. Do you have any last advice for your young colleagues that are applying for the program
Dr.Haggar:
I think, try to be yourself. Try to do the things that are important for emergency medicine and I would say also, if you are thinking of coming to our program. The most important thing is to be involved and want to be part of the whole group and you know, we’re really not a huge program.
We really look for people who are going to work to step up and do whatever it is that needs to be done and be part of the group engaged in the program.
Mostafa:
Perfect and being part of the program, I can certify to that.
I find there is big room for you to do in whether you’re interested in simulation or program management etc. There is always room to do stuff that you like and to be part and add to the program.
Dr.Haggar, thank you very much for your time with us. I think my future colleagues are really going to benefit from that.
Dr.Haggar:
No problem. Glad to help.
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