On your path to becoming a doctor, the two most significant choices you'll make happen long before you enter the OR. The first is the choice you've already made. The one to devote your life to helping others. The second, the one you may be trying to make right now, is deciding where you'll go to medical school. When I was making that decision, I wanted someone to just helicopter in and help me choose.

At the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine, we make things happen. Truth is, once I saw DeGroote, my mind was made up. The school has everything I wanted, plus a lot of things I'd never considered. When you visit the campuses, speak to the students, sit down with the faculty, you just kind of know. But you'll make up your own mind.

We're just here to give you an overview. Welcome to the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine at McMaster University. DeGroote was founded in 1966 and is already one of Canada's largest medical schools. The school routinely receives twice as many applicants as any other medical school in the country, with students vying to study at all three of our campuses: Hamilton, Niagara, and Waterloo.

But let's talk about you. Why should you come to DeGroote? Because you want to be more than an MCAT score. You want to learn about cutting-edge research and also be the driving force behind it. You want to be taught by the best and, more importantly, you want to really get to know your profs. You want to be taught about antibiotics, pregnancy, and multiple courses.

A great strength at McMaster is that students come from all sorts of backgrounds, whether it be sciences, to music, to drama, to administration. They can come from the health field or not. There's really great flexibility and support. The founders of the medical school really believed that you should learn medicine the way you're going to practice medicine.

There are so many important aspects beyond just the science. Things like being able to communicate with people, understand where they're coming from, apply the medicine to them specifically. It's really to the benefit of all students to have a variety of disciplines contributing to the conversation. Small classes are actually a cornerstone of the DeGroote approach to developing well-rounded and capable doctors.

McMaster was the originator of problem-based small group learning. So students learn in a tutorial setting in small groups of seven or eight students, led by a faculty facilitator. Through the curriculum, they learn how to identify their learning needs. They learn the skills of teamwork. McMaster's method of teaching has made it very easy for me to flourish and thrive in this environment and learn what I need to learn as a medical student.

The medical program really allows you to explore your own weaknesses, self-direct your learning. I found that this type of learning is one where the information really sticks. It allows me to fill the gaps in my own knowledge and get to where I know that I need to be. By all accounts, the professionals are pleased with what they see.

I think the McMaster education model encourages people to think outside the box, whilst remaining dedicated to patient care quality and patient safety. I think it's a very positive way of learning how to care for people. It turns out that this type of academic atmosphere leads to extensive practical experience. Life's not a dress rehearsal and med school shouldn't be either.

Students are able to choose from working in small towns or even rural locations to working in a large teaching hospital. They have the opportunity to choose what rotations they want to do and to learn in a variety of settings. Here we have only the people who want to teach, so people who are really driven, who are really passionate about teaching young and budding learners.

They're the ones who we get the most contact with. With such broad access to clinical and hospital placements, DeGroote students graduate with a practical knowledge as strong as their academic understanding. For five years in a row, DeGroote has ranked among the top three Canadian institutions for biomedical and healthcare research revenues.

So what does this mean for you? It means McMaster attracts the best. We have a faculty of the most innovative and forward-thinking researchers and practitioners in North America, all actively pioneering the future of medicine. Healthcare five years from now and ten years from now is going to look very different. It will be much more technologically focused, so we'll need flexibility to learn how to negotiate that healthcare system.

I think we have great clinical teachers, committed teachers, who have a very practical sense of what the practice of medicine is like. I've been amazed at the caliber of people that come and choose to be here. They're just a great group of people to learn with. But as I said, this is just an overview. Come to Hamilton, or Niagara, or Waterloo, and see for yourself.

McMaster is an amazing medical school because it focuses on teaching the human side of medicine. Their principles are ingrained into me, and I will be a physician that doesn't stop striving to find the answers. I'm excited to enter the field of medicine, and to help others, and McMaster is helping me to achieve that. Dr. Michael Dieter Groot School of Medicine. Together, advancing health through learning and discovery.