As a student on a budget, I love the word free, so I took an inventory of what’s free out there for medical students. I knew that my Doctors of BC membership is free during my 4 years of medical school, but I had forgotten that this includes a free CMA membership, which means free access to handy resources such as RxTx and DynaMed Plus, not to mention various additional deals and discounts.

I knew that I received free life insurance with Doctors of BC through my 4 years of medical school as well, but as of the 2018–19 school year Doctors of BC disability insurance is also free through all 4 years. That’s saving me at least $925 in premiums!

I knew about the rural-rotation travel stipend of up to $800, but I almost forgot about the $250 weekly housing allowance for up to 8 weeks: all the more reason to do a rural elective in fourth year.

I knew that Doctors of BC provides some of the needs-based bursaries applied through the UBC Student Service Centre (up to $250 000 is donated each year), but I was not aware of other ways to win money. I could win a $1000 prize for submitting an article to the BCMJ, a $250 prize for writing a BCMJ blog post, a $5000 award for demonstrating interest in rural medicine, and a $1000 Changemaker Award for demonstrating leadership in advocacy.

Of course, Doctors of BC hosts the much-anticipated annual Backpack Day for first-year students, but this year I attended the other big (and arguably more important) annual event—Find Your Match, where I and other students got insider tips from physicians from various disciplines while enjoying a scrumptious, fully catered meal.

Free membership plus all those extras—that’s a lot of value.
—Jessie Wang
Medical Student Intern, Doctors of BC