Medical students join physician mentors at Doctors of BC event

Issue: BCMJ, vol. 56, No. 3, April 2014, Page 143 News
Dr Shao-Hua Lu talks to medical students about life as a psychiatrist at the February event. The other 
disciplines represented were emergency medicine, obstetrics-gynecology, urology, pediatrics, general 
practice, dermatology, endocrinology, surgery, and neurology.

UBC medical students came together with practising physicians from a variety of specialties to gather information about career planning and lifestyle choices at the first-ever Life in Medicine: Doctors of BC Mentorship Dinner 27 February 2014 in Vancouver. The event was organized as a “speed networking” dinner, where 11 physicians rotated from table to table to talk about what life is like in their chosen discipline. Over 120 students asked questions about work and lifestyle choices and to gain a deeper understanding of what opportunities were available.

Dr William Cunningham, an ER physician and president of Doctors of BC, was one of the mentors. He told the audience that throughout the year he’s met and heard students voice their concern about the lack of career counseling before graduation. “We’re supporting medical students to get information before they make their career choices, something they’ve told us they want,” said Dr Cunningham. “We believe that by engaging with students—the doctors of tomorrow—now and throughout their careers, we will help them become influential physician leaders who can make a meaningful difference to their patients, their communities, and to the health care system.”

Throughout the event doctors and students were engaged in animated conversations, and students said that while the evening was busy, it was also of great value and they were happy they attended. 

The event is one of the initiatives coming out of Doctors of BC’s 3-year strategic plan that focuses on stronger engagement with medical students, residents, and other members. More such events will be planned in the future, and students and residents will also be invited to have lunch with the president as he continues to travel around the province.

. Medical students join physician mentors at Doctors of BC event. BCMJ, Vol. 56, No. 3, April, 2014, Page(s) 143 - News.


Above is the information needed to cite this article in your paper or presentation. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommends the following citation style, which is the now nearly universally accepted citation style for scientific papers:
Halpern SD, Ubel PA, Caplan AL, Marion DW, Palmer AM, Schiding JK, et al. Solid-organ transplantation in HIV-infected patients. N Engl J Med. 2002;347:284-7.

About the ICMJE and citation styles

The ICMJE is small group of editors of general medical journals who first met informally in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1978 to establish guidelines for the format of manuscripts submitted to their journals. The group became known as the Vancouver Group. Its requirements for manuscripts, including formats for bibliographic references developed by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), were first published in 1979. The Vancouver Group expanded and evolved into the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), which meets annually. The ICMJE created the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals to help authors and editors create and distribute accurate, clear, easily accessible reports of biomedical studies.

An alternate version of ICMJE style is to additionally list the month an issue number, but since most journals use continuous pagination, the shorter form provides sufficient information to locate the reference. The NLM now lists all authors.

BCMJ standard citation style is a slight modification of the ICMJE/NLM style, as follows:

  • Only the first three authors are listed, followed by "et al."
  • There is no period after the journal name.
  • Page numbers are not abbreviated.


For more information on the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, visit www.icmje.org

BCMJ Guidelines for Authors

Leave a Reply