Career Planning Advice

Deepen your Research to Define your Course

Researching Specialties

  • Consider these external resources.
  • Compare and analyze the Canadian Medical Association's Canadian Specialty Profiles.
  • Consult the information by the discipline of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.
  • Learn about a career in family medicine through Family Medicine Interest Groups—these student-run groups are present at each of the universities 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 rather than anyone else's opinion.
  • Your priorities are all legitimate, provided they are your own. Future professional opportunities, research directions, type of patients in the practice, lifestyle; all of these reasons (and many more) are valid, as long as they are genuinely important to you.
  • Go back to see the results of your Careers in Medicine self-assessment, or retake those self-assessments.
  • Review your lists of pros and cons.
  • Determine which disciplines meet most of your priorities, and which ones meet some, but not others. 
  • If you see a lack of information in any of the five points above, look to fill those gaps.
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