I have been admitted to McMaster's Medical Radiation Sciences program, and have a few questions....
How does each year at McMaster's Medical Radiation program work? I have heard that your first year is 8 months (Sept-Apr), but your second and third year you stay at McMaster for the entire year (12 months) to earn your diploma. I am some what confused by this, and would like to know how exactly this works. Thank you so much for your time!

First of all, congrats!
Med rad is a great program...it's really tough and you'll have a love-hate relationship. But it's pretty small, especially when you get into your stream, and you'll make some close and awesome relationships.

So here's the run-down:
Year I- A lot of general science courses as well as some med rad sci specific courses. You will be introduced to all three streams and given a chance to deliberate on which stream you are leaning towards the most. Towards the end of the year you will be asked to choose which stream you would like to go into (rate them in order of 1 to 3, 1 being the preferred choice. You can also choose one stream as #1 and the other two as tied at #2, meaning if you don't get into your stream of choice, you don't care which of the other two you go into). Sometime in May, you will see on your Grade Report which stream you have gotten into. Most people get their choice, but there is a limited number for each stream and some students are eliminated from the program if they have not met program expectations. If you are competing for a spot in a stream, the higher your GPA, the better your chance of being chosen. You then get the summer off (YAY) so enjoy it.

Year II- This year will include stream-specific courses as well as a couple of interdisciplinary courses that you will take with the other two streams. You will finish exams in April. Some time in the second semester, you will be given a list of clinical placements across Ontario and you pick your top five choices. It will too long for me to explain the lottery process now (maybe in another post) but you may end up with one of your top five or you may be allocated to a completely other placement. For this first placement, most people get what they want. You will start your placement in May and it will be three months, so you get August off.

Year III- Worst. Year. Ever. Also best year ever :S This year drags on as it runs from September to August. You will take 15 courses, five each semester. Again, most will be stream specific and some will be shared with the other two streams. The worst part of this year is that you get around a week off in between semesters and are doing school full-time during the summer, which totally sucks. But it is also the last time you will be at Mac :( Summer time at Mac can kind of be awesome. Again, enjoy it- you will miss it. So your third semester ends at the end of July, and you get August off (YAY). Sometime during the summer semester, you will again be choosing a placement for the September-December semester. For your second and third placement, it is somewhat harder to get your choice.

Year IV- First semester, you will be doing a clinical rotation. Depending on your stream, this may be your last rotation. Radiography and Radiation Therapy only do two placements due to the limited clinical sites across Ontario, so they stay at the same hospital from September- April. Ultrasound has a lot more options, so they are required to do a third placement. During the first semester, you will be choosing your third site (if you are in Ultrasound). In that case, you start your third placement in January and end in April.

Beyond Year IV- a lot of students find jobs in one of their placements. Some hospitals really do prefer to hire people they've trained! If not, you will be looking for a job and most people get hired before graduation, especially in ultrasound as there is a lot of demand.
Then you graduate in June

Best of luck

Feel free to ask any more questions you may have

Wow, thank you SO much for your answer! It has really helped me clear up the confusion. I really liked your answer, it is very detailed which is what I wanted. What program did you specialize in?
I would really love to specialize in Ultrasound but I know I really have to work for it next year. :S

Sorry to bother you, but I have a few other questions. From all the specializations (radiation therapy/ultrasound/radiography) is there one that stands out more than the rest? I know all 3 programs will be hard, but is there one that is much harder than the rest? In the second paragraph you said some students are eliminated from the program, what do you exactly mean by that? Do you mean like, they didn't have enough credits/failed and because of that you have to chose a different program for your second year? That's a very scary thought.. One last question, what do you really love about this program? Sorry if some of these questions are silly, I'm just really curious.

Thank you sooo much for your time

HEY! I accepted medrad for next year and it will be my first year! I went on the tour at [email protected] and they said the most competitive stream is Radiation Therapy, meaning more people apply to that stream, but I don't know so much about the difficulty of them.

Congrats on going into med rad! I am in 2nd year ultrasound, so I am currently on my first clinical. If you have any questions about ultrasound specifically, feel free to ask.

Hey Ashley! I have accepted my offer aswell, see you in September!
Which program do you want to specialize in?

Thank you, Alyssa
And my main goal is to get into Ultrasound, so yes I will email you

Originally Posted by ashleylau

HEY! I accepted medrad for next year and it will be my first year! I went on the tour at [email protected] and they said the most competitive stream is Radiation Therapy, meaning more people apply to that stream, but I don't know so much about the difficulty of them.

Rad therapy definitely accepts the fewest number of students. Next is ultrasound (30-something students in my year), and radiography accepts the most students.

Incidentally, that particular stream has far fewer jobs available than radiography and ultrasound. I was actually most interested in that stream, but decided against it. A radiation therapist who graduated from mac a few years ago came to talk to us, and when we asked what percentage of her graduating year currently had jobs, the answer was disappointingly low. Something like 60%?

The number of cancer treatment centres on Ontario is very limited, so unless you want to work out of the province, I would not recommend it unless you're absolutely sure that the stream is exactly what you want to do with your life.

Oh, bit of advice regarding clinicals:

I've had people message me on FB and ask how they can ensure that they don't have to move/commute away from their families for clinical. YOU CAN'T. Clinical placements are divided into 3 categories: Local, Commute, and Relocate. Rad therapy and radiography have 2 placements each, and ultrasound has 3. At LEAST one of your placements must be a commute or relocate. Here is this year's clinical list for 2nd year students. If doing relocate or commute sites is "absolutely not possible," as someone who messaged me on fb said, DO NOT ENTER THIS PROGRAM. It won't work for you and you won't get special consideration.

Originally Posted by Amaryll

Oh, bit of advice regarding clinicals:

I've had people message me on FB and ask how they can ensure that they don't have to move/commute away from their families for clinical. YOU CAN'T. Clinical placements are divided into 3 categories: Local, Commute, and Relocate. Rad therapy and radiography have 2 placements each, and ultrasound has 3. At LEAST one of your placements must be a commute or relocate. Here is this year's clinical list for 2nd year students. If doing relocate or commute sites is "absolutely not possible," as someone who messaged me on fb said, DO NOT ENTER THIS PROGRAM. It won't work for you and you won't get special consideration.

That's an interesting way to run a program, is that just specific to med rad? I'm guessing it's to make the student more well-rounded? Good advices!

Originally Posted by RyanC

That's an interesting way to run a program, is that just specific to med rad? I'm guessing it's to make the student more well-rounded? Good advices!

I think it's more due to availability of placements.

Thank you for the advice Amaryll! I had no idea, that the relocate areas would be so far away from Hamilton.

Originally Posted by Amaryll

Oh, bit of advice regarding clinicals:

I've had people message me on FB and ask how they can ensure that they don't have to move/commute away from their families for clinical. YOU CAN'T. Clinical placements are divided into 3 categories: Local, Commute, and Relocate. Rad therapy and radiography have 2 placements each, and ultrasound has 3. At LEAST one of your placements must be a commute or relocate. Here is this year's clinical list for 2nd year students. If doing relocate or commute sites is "absolutely not possible," as someone who messaged me on fb said, DO NOT ENTER THIS PROGRAM. It won't work for you and you won't get special consideration.

Not true lol. When choosing your top 5 for a clinical placement, at least one of the top 5 has to be Commute and one has to be Relocate. That does not mean you will necessarily have to do a relocate or a commute. You could still put your top 3 as local sites and be placed in one of those.

Personally, I think the Commute placements are the best. We're talking placements mostly in the greater Toronto area.

While I relocated for my last placement and my other two were considered "Commute" (the Commute placements were my #1 choices though), some people do get lucky. I personally know someone who had Hamilton placements for all three clinicals. That is not to say that you should hang all your hopes on that. Especially in ultrasound, you are definitely more likely to have to move out for one of them at least because a lot of people will be competing for the Hamilton and Toronto placements.

When you do a Relocate, you are "protected" for your next placement. This means that all the Relocate students get to choose their next placement before everyone else. This way you are almost guaranteed a placement of your choice. You should definitely keep that in mind. If you are in ultrasound and are required to do three clinical semesters, it would be a great experience to do your second placement in another town. You could choose a Relocate that seems interesting to you and make a great experience out of it, and come back and do your third placement in your home town where you want to get hired (a lot of people get jobs at their last placement in ultrasound).

However, Amaryll is absolutely right about this - you will NOT get special consideration. All kinds of whacked up stuff happened in my undergrad...the program is still very new and has some glitches. We had a couple of students who- without informing the clinical coordinator- wrote to hospitals that were not clinical sites asking them to take on a student because that student did find a suitable placement on the list (...are you kidding me). Or emailed a clinical site asking them to take on an additional student because that student wanted that placement but did not get it.

There is a lot of legal/accreditation stuff and paperwork that goes into a hospital becoming a placement site so for those students to imagine that their email would be sufficient is ridiculous.

Hey,

I just completed first year of Med Rad, and I'm just wondering if it's true that if you fail courses in your first year, do you really get kicked out of the program??

I definitely didn't drop or fail any courses, but I do know a couple of people who did..

Also, if anybody who is joining this program has any questions about the program in general I can definitely answer them. Just send me a PM.

Originally Posted by dsalvatore

Not true lol. When choosing your top 5 for a clinical placement, at least one of the top 5 has to be Commute and one has to be Relocate. That does not mean you will necessarily have to do a relocate or a commute. You could still put your top 3 as local sites and be placed in one of those.

Thanks for the clarification! Must've had a brain fart when I wrote that. On that note, I know quite a few people who've been placed at sites that weren't even on their top 5 lists, out in Northern Ontario. Definitely not ideal if you have kids to look after or parents who want you to stay close.

Originally Posted by mastercool

I just completed first year of Med Rad, and I'm just wondering if it's true that if you fail courses in your first year, do you really get kicked out of the program??

I definitely didn't drop or fail any courses, but I do know a couple of people who did..

Also, if anybody who is joining this program has any questions about the program in general I can definitely answer them. Just send me a PM.

Depends on the courses. If you don't complete/pass courses that are prerequisites for courses in the following term, you will be unable to continue and will have to switch to something like Life Sci and re-apply to get back into Medrad the following year. I'm not sure about required non-medrad courses, like bio, which you might technically be able to take during the summer, because second year specializations are decided in May. If you are allowed to re-take the required course, you would probably not have much of an option when it comes to your specialization and your spot may not even be guaranteed because of other students trying to re-enter medrad. If you're in this situation, I would see an academic adviser at the office of the Assistant Dean of Science.

In order to be placed into a specialization in second year, you have to have a certain average. This may vary by year. You can find the current average in the McMaster Undergraduate Calendar. After first year, you need a cumulative average of 5.0 to continue. You also have to have the required number of credits at the end of each year to continue--however, if you happen to fail an elective course but have previous credits (say, from before you switched into medrad), you can use those.

For second year, all of your medrad courses are prerequisites to continue except for Medrad 2BB3 Digital Informatics, which you can re-take in 3rd year if you fail. However, what I said about about credits, applying to re-enter, and electives still applies. I believe there were 3 people in 2nd year ultrasound this past year who failed a prerequisite course during term 1 and are now in Life Sci, taking Medrad 2BB3 and re-applying to the program next year. There were also some people who failed out of the other specializations, and who failed out of first year.

Feel free to pm if you have any questions about medrad. Good luck to everyone considering and currently in the program!