Booking your vacation is done at the same “Elective Management Link” on the UGME page. You are granted 3-5 weeks of vacation that you can swap for any elective period. Make sure you log you vacation on time.
Demystifying period 7:
- Each clerkship student scheduled for a mandatory clerkship course during period 7 will be allotted seven consecutive days off (5 weekdays and 2 weekend days) for either the Christmas break or the New Year’s break. This applies to students scheduled for geriatric medicine and emergency medicine in period 7 of Med-4 and ALL core clerkship rotations in Med-3.
- Each clerkship student scheduled for an elective during period 7 will be allotted time off for the statutory holidays, as determined by the clinical teaching site. This means that if you are doing an elective during period 7, you will be off on the actual STAT days only. If you would like to have a complete week off from your elective, you can take a week of vacation as long as the planned elective will still be a minimum of 10 working days. A vacation week taken during period 7, will count towards vacation requirements. Having the STAT days only doesn’t count towards vacation requirements.
- New rule implemented very recently: similar to an elective in any other period, the minimal length for an elective in Period 7 is 10 working days in order to allow you to meet the educational goals for the elective. In other words, you have the choice of completing a 4-week elective, a 3-week elective plus 1-week vacation or a 2-week elective plus 2-week vacation. 2-week electives were not permitted in previous years. Given that for students doing an elective in Period 7 the statutory holidays are days off, this year (2017-2018) the only way to do a complete 2–week elective (with 10 working days) is to complete 2 non-consecutive weeks (and take 2 weeks of vacation in between) or complete 2 consecutive weeks working on statutory holidays/weekends. It is at the discretion of the elective supervisors to accept a non-consecutive elective or allow you to work on weekends and statutory holidays to complete the required 10 clinical days.
You are required to send an email to the McGill Electives Coordinator confirming that the Electives Director for period 7 has approved a non-consecutive elective. Completing two 2-week electives during period 7 will only be possible if a student worked on ALL statutory holidays to have 10 working days in each 2-week elective. For your own wellness, this is not recommended. The vacation week(s) taken during period 7 come from your bank of vacation weeks for 4th year students (3-5 weeks of vacation need to be taken).