About the CFMS
The CFMS is an organization representing over 8,000 medical students from 15 Canadian medical student societies from coast to coast. We represent medical students to the public, to the federal government, and to national and international medical organizations.Dear Canadian Medical Students,
As the dust settles on Match Day 2022, as many deservingly celebrate and as some start planning big moves across the country, Medical School continues to be a roller coaster of emotions. While the number of unmatched grads in first iteration data is not public, the number is vast and the stories we are hearing from students are disheartening. There continues to be systemic barriers that disadvantage many students across the country.
During my time as President I have been invited to and sit on more committees than I would like to admit about changing the culture of medicine and physician resource planning. Just as I believe we are making progress I am slapped in the face by the reality of how this system is so concrete about solidifying the status quo. Students are told that parallel planning is an absolute necessity, yet I hear from students who did just that and did not match to Family Medicine, at their home schools. To say these stories are disappointing is an understatement.
If you are an unmatched student please know that the match is not done, and your career is not over. Everyone will face obstacles in their career. We know it feels terrifying and permanent right now, but many unmatched graduates go on to have fulfilling and successful careers in every specialty including, but not only, in family medicine. Some do this with a second iteration match result, some do this after an additional year, and some do it after a research year. Whatever path you take is yours and we support you at every step. There are many ways up the mountain. You are great at medicine, but you are not only medicine. We know you have worked so hard, and we know that you more than earned and deserve a residency position.
Advocacy areas of focus:
- Transparency on the reasons graduates went unmatched.
- Evaluation on the use of tests such as FMPRoC and CaSPER and if these evaluations are achieving the goals from the intended programs.
- Remove scoring related to prioritization of programs and challenge the idea of what programs deem to prove commitment to a particular specialty. A student who explored a variety of interests and ranked your program will support long term retention and wellness related to their future career.
In Solidarity,
Santanna Hernandez, President & Victoria Turnbull, Director of Education
ABOUT THE CANADIAN FEDERATION OF MEDICAL STUDENTS: The Canadian Federation of Medical Students (CFMS) is the national organization representing over 8,000 Canadian medical students from 15 medical schools across Canada. We represent medical students to the public, to the federal government, and to national and international medical organizations. We are tomorrow’s physicians leading for health today. For more information on CFMS’ advocacy work, please visit https://www.cfms.org/.