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.PRESS RELEASE: Decision on Appointment of Interim Director of Education
We are pleased to announce that after discussions amongst our team and hearing from previous Directors of Education, we have decided to appoint Victoria Turnbull (our current Ontario Regional Director) as Interim Director of Education. She will serve the remainder of this shortened term allowing for a full and democratic election to occur for the position in April at our Spring General Meeting as would normally occur. It would not be fair to appoint someone to this position for such a short period of time, try to onboard them, and then ask them to onboard a new director after the SGM.
A message from Victoria:
Hello fellow medical students!
It’s nice to meet you. My name is Victoria and I’m a fourth-year medical student at McMaster. I am excited to be taking over the Education Portfolio for the next couple of months while we await the democratic election process.
I want to begin by telling you about myself and why I got involved with the CFMS and specifically this portfolio.
Last year, I applied to the residency match and unfortunately went unmatched. In that process, I discovered that this is a group of students that often find themselves at the margins of medical education. I ran for the CFMS so that my voice, and the voice of other unmatched students would be heard among a medical student leadership team.
As Ontario Regional Director, I have partnered with OMSA in advocating for changes at the provincial level, I have represented students on a range of external committees, and I have worked closely with both the former Director of Education and other Regional Directors to oversee the Education Portfolio. I created the Match Task Force, a cross-portfolio home to advocate for students entering the match and who have gone unmatched. This task force also oversees the creation of new resources about the match and aims to support students applying for residency positions. This task force will always be a home for students who have gone unmatched and would like to be further involved in advocating for change (and is also open to any students who are interested!).
The decision to appoint Director of Education from within our board was not taken lightly. In the interest of full transparency, however, we wanted to ensure that the next Director of Education would be fairly elected and would be able to take over a portfolio that was well structured and ready for the transition process.
I will be spending the next couple of months re-structuring the portfolio. We will be maintaining initiatives and resources that work well, and re-structuring others to ensure that students are best supported. We will be creating guides to navigating clerkship, networking, and the match during COVID. We will establish vital supports for Match Day. And we will continue to represent you and your voices to our external partners.
If you have any concerns, ideas, or just want to get involved, please reach out to me! I’m always here and I want to hear from you.
Thank you so much,
Victoria Turnbull
Interim Director of Education
Ontario Regional Director