Career Planning Advice
Researching Specialties
- Consider these external resources.
- Compare and analyze the Canadian Medical Association's Canadian Specialty Profiles.
- Consult聽the information by the discipline of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.
- Learn about a career in聽family medicine through Family Medicine Interest Groups鈥攖hese student-run groups are present at each of the universities聽and provide clinical skills-building sessions and educational seminars on family medicine - by consulting the website of the College of Family Physicians of Canada.
- Use the Careers in Medicine tool from the Association of American Medical Colleges.
- Talk to the professors, instructors, preceptors, panellists and mentors around you further clarify roles in various disciplines and contexts.
- Shadow faculty members.
Define your Course
- This is very personal. I would suggest evaluating specialties to select a discipline based only on your priorities聽rather than anyone else's opinion.
- Your priorities are all legitimate, provided they are your own. Future professional opportunities, research directions, type聽of patients in the practice, lifestyle; all of these reasons (and many more) are valid, as long as they are genuinely important聽to you.
- Go聽back to see the results of your Careers in Medicine self-assessment, or retake those self-assessments.
- Review your聽lists of pros and cons.
- Determine which disciplines meet most of your priorities, and which ones meet some, but not others.聽
- If you see a lack of information in聽any of the five points above, look to fill those gaps.