Written by: McMaster Medical School c2023 Student 1. Where and how long was your placement? What specialty was it in?
The core was 4 weeks in psychiatry at Etobicoke General Hospital (William Osler Health System.) I found an AirBnB around 15 minute drive away from the hospital. A car would save you a lot of time (bus ride is ~1 hour) 2. What were your accommodations like? Did you get any funding from the school (MacCare etc?) $800 for housing. It can be a bit challenging to find a good place because it's not really a campus town. 3. Describe a typical day at your elective/core. Start around 9am, day usually wraps up by 3-4pm. In the morning, you will be rounding on the inpatients to check how they did overnight and how their treatments are coming along. In the afternoon, you get to observe outpatient interviews and sometimes get a chance to lead the initial consult. Even for outpatient follow-ups, you can chime in to ask questions from time to time. There is a mix of telephone and in-person appointments at the moment due to COVID. During call, you'll be asked to see psychiatry consults that come in through the ED. 4. What is your most memorable experience from this elective/core? For me, the most memorable experience was getting to work with patients whose lives have been struck by mental illness and felt that they had no hopes of getting better. I did an initial outpatient consult independently at the beginning of the rotation, and I got to follow up with the same patient towards the end of my rotation. The patient was enthusiastic about how much better they were feeling even after a few weeks of starting treatment and they said that I had made them feel heard for the first time. 5. What was one thing you didn’t like about the elective/core? Because the child and adolescent psychiatry in-patient unit is in Brampton, any patients under the age of 18 who need to be admitted will be transferred there. If you want more of a child/adolescent exposure, contact the psychiatry lead for William Osler Health System (Dr. Prakash Babani) to see if you can be preferentially placed in Brampton. 6. Has this elective influenced your career decisions? If so, how? I think it made me certain that I do not want to pursue psychiatry as a career. It is definitely a fascinating specialty, but I don't think I have the mental fortitude that it takes to be a psychiatrist. I struggle to separate the work and personal domains and I become easily attached to patients. As I listened to the stories of some of the patients and the hardships that they were going through in life, I found that it was beginning to affect me as well. 7. Do you have any recommendations for things to do/explore/eat in the local area? It's super close to downtown Toronto and also very accessible by transit as well! Unfortunately, I wasn't able to explore much because of the lockdown. 8. What’s one thing you wish you knew before doing this elective/future advice you have for students doing an elective here in the future? If you're looking to explore the bread and butter of psychiatry, definitely choose this location. If you're hoping to match to psychiatry, choose a busier location (Etobicoke tends to be smaller volume) 9. Would you recommend this elective/core to current students? Absolutely!
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Etobicoke General Hospital, background credits: williamoslerhs.ca
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