Mccqe And Mccee Exams, A Brief Summary Of My Understanding Of The Canadian Exams

All the exams are admininstered by the medical council of canada
www.mcc.ca

1) MCCEE: This is the basic and 1st step. It covers Medicine, surgery, gynae/obs, paeds, psychiatry, pharmacology (don't worry about it, only major drug uses adverse effects are asked n there r hardly one or two quests), ethics, public health and a few questions from basic sciences. MCCEE is administered six times a year through prometric and in pakistan centres are in karachi, lahore and Islamabad. This exam is quite different from USMLE step 2 in terms of question format, though you can do UW MCQs to polish your concepts.
The book recommended for it is TORONTO NOTES. Yo have to do it cover to cover. Personally, I don't like it coz it's a shamim style book except that it has almost everything.
It took me 40 days to prepare for exam or you can say I had to give it in 40days after final year exam coz of my planned schedule. But usual recommended preparation time is 3months. My case was different in a sense that I had to give it earlier plus I had bought Toronto Notes when I was in 4th Year MBBS, also I was fresh from final year.
I gave two reads to Toronto Notes before the exam and did UW MCQs just to understand. Remember they are not that helpful for MCCEE, they are rather helpful for MCCQE1. You can also do past questions available on www.rxpgonline.com and Canada Qbank.
Some people don't use toronto notes and prepare from Kaplan plus UW.You can pass with it but to get a good score Toronto Notes is a must.

After passing MCCEE, you can apply for residency through CARMS(www.carms.ca

As the competition is much more tougher in canada, so it's recommended to pass MCCQE1 and also a step 2CS type exam from your provincial body.

2) MCCQE1 is taken after passing MCCEE, it also covers almost the same subjects as MCCEE but the exam is like USMLE step2 plus a portion of clinical reasoning (considered to be tougher than USMLE step2). Again you can choose to study Toronto Notes or opt for the kaplan plus UW pathway which is very useful for this exam rather than the MCCEE. Many people give MCCQe1 and USMLE step 2 together, keeing a gap of not more than 1week in between them.

Getting residency in canada is harder than in the US, but if you have done your electives and have good LORs, your chances are brighter.

This is a brief summary of the canadian exams. If I could be of any further help please do ask, this will help me improving this post...


                                                                                    Dr. Waseem