What are electives?
- Electives are rotations that will occur during your third and fourth years of training.
- You need to complete your elective weeks (total of 15 to 17 weeks for Montreal based students and 19 to 21 weeks for Gatineau students) and in 3 different specialties.
- Research is not counted as its own discipline and will fall under the discipline in which it is undertaken.
- Specialties (and available McGill based elective descriptions) are here: http://www.mcgill.ca/ugme-electives/elective-courses
- All other Canadian elective opportunities can be found by school in the AFMC portal (see explanation in “How to Book Electives” section)
- Possibility of completing electives in the U.S. We will be adding more information about this soon.
When should I be thinking about electives and when should I start to plan?
- You should start thinking about the electives you would like to do towards the end of your second year of medical school. If you end up having the third year schedule where you start with an elective, you will need to act on it fairly quickly. As the schedule is usually released towards the end of second year, it might be too late to apply to other universities if you start with the Elective/Woman and Child health block. For this reason you should probably plan your first elective at McGill.
- When should I apply? Every school and elective has a requirement for the maximum (i.e. 26-28 weeks) and minimum number of weeks (i.e. 16 weeks) you must book in advance. You will find all of this information on the AFMC portal. Concerning deadlines to submit your elective form to McGill, they are listed in the following document: Elective Deadline
If I want to start early, what are the things I can plan to save time during clerkship?
Planning electives is unfortunately not so simple. There is the application in itself which is not so long, but there are documentations that go with it. The two most common documents required by schools are the immunization forms and the police record check. Take the time you have, especially in second year, to get these documents prepared. As a McGill student, you may visit McGill Student Health Services, and have your vaccination record updated or immunization forms completed without a fee. For information about what these are and how to get them ready, go check out the “Required Documents” section.
If your test results are more than a year old, you will need to do an updated PPD, in which case you will need a nurse’s appointment. Email medwell2@mcgill.ca to request for an appointment (within 6-8 weeks of your emailed request).