Electronic letters to:

Research:
Irfan A. Dhalla, Jeff C. Kwong, David L. Streiner, Ralph E. Baddour, Andrea E. Waddell, and Ian L. Johnson
Characteristics of first-year students in Canadian medical schools
CMAJ 2002; 166: 1029-1035 [Abstract] [Full text] [PDF]
*eLetters: Submit a response to this article

Electronic letters published:

[Read eLetter] Discrepancy in applicant pool, or in admission selection?
Lori E Verton   (1 May 2002)
[Read eLetter] Missing: Quebec medical students
Panayiotis Glavas   (23 April 2002)

Discrepancy in applicant pool, or in admission selection? 1 May 2002
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Lori E Verton,
Clinical Research

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Re: Discrepancy in applicant pool, or in admission selection?

l.verton{at}sympatico.ca Lori E Verton

I read with great interest your article on the characteristics of first year students in Canadian medical schools. The results of the study served to confirm a fact which I have personally experienced and believed to be true. As a premed student I often stuggled with the seeming inequity in the admission process;as a student coming from a lower socioeconomic background I found myself having to work more than 20 hours per week while at the same time carrying out my full time studies. A number of my more financially privileged peers did not have this added workload, and as well had the advantage of having the most up to date technology available to them (15 years ago,PC's were very expensive; I had a typewriter and the library, they had word processing and encyclopedia software). In the end, I was disqualified from applying to the majority of Ontario's medical schools because, in order to meet my financial obligations, and on my counsellor's advice, I took 4.5 courses in both of my last two years, with 1.0 credit taken in the summer term in- between. This meant that I could not "prove" to the admissions process that I could "handle" a full course load(5.0 credits per year). My financial situation created an intrinsic inequity that I am sure was not experienced by my higher socioeconomic peers.

I would be most interested to see a similar study undertaken with the respondents comprised of applicants to medical school and/or registered in premedical undergrad programs. It may be useful to determine if these findings extend to the medical applicant pool as well. If it does not, perhaps the admission process itself should be examined.

Missing: Quebec medical students 23 April 2002
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Panayiotis Glavas,
medical student
Université de Montréal

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Re: Missing: Quebec medical students

pglavas{at}hotmail.com Panayiotis Glavas

I read with great interest the article by Dhalla and colleagues on the demographics of Canadian medical students. However, as a student from the province of Quebec, I was disappointed that that data from the Quebec universities were not included.

The authors indicate that a poor response rate, incomplete email databases, and a "large number of premedical students" as reasons to exclude Quebec students. To try to correct these problems, the survey could have been better publicized and a more thorough search for emails should have been conducted. As for the authors concern about premedical sudents, it is unfounded; they could have easily eliminated those reponses from the final analysis if they wished to do so.

To make pan-Canadian inferences about Canadian medical students without including a quarter of Canadian medical faculties is a grave error.

References

Dhalla IA, Kwong JC, Streiner DL, Baddour RE, Waddell AE, Johnson IA. Characteristics of first-year students in Canadian medical schools. CMAJ;2002166(8):1229-35.