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This Program provides amazing opportunities for one-to-one learning in hospital rotations, Emergency Medicine and Family Medicine clinics across Southern Alberta as well as Northern locations when feasible (Yellowknife and Whitehorse).
The core of the Program is based on extended rotations in Rural Family Medicine settings providing 16 weeks of Rural Family Medicine in first year and 24 weeks of Rural Family Medicine in second year.
Residents experience full scope, comprehensive care with a high, but appropriate level of independence, and significant opportunities for training in procedural skills and acute care.
Residents in the program have the opportunity to obtain experience and teaching in critical care and the ICU rotation in Calgary has been particularly well evaluated and appreciated over the last few years.
High quality teaching is delivered by experienced rural regional preceptors in Southern Alberta.
Financial support is provided by the program through the University of Calgary. Resident accommodation is arranged and paid for outside their home base of Medicine Hat or Lethbridge. There is also reimbursement for travel expenses to academic workshops and out-of-town rotations. The Family Medicine experience includes a total of 40 weeks in different rural community-based Family Medicine practices. Most sites have accommodation suitable for couples and some for small families.
The Rural Family Medicine Residency Program in Medicine Hat and Lethbridge are a stream of the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Calgary. The emphasis in the rural program is on providing learning opportunities that will enable the resident to successfully practice in a rural centre at graduation. This occurs in a context and practice environment that, as much as possible, reflects the real world of Rural Practice. Following our philosophy that future Rural Physicians should train in the setting in which they practice, Residents choose rotations in regional and rural sites across southern and central Alberta.
This small, decentralized program allows a focus on the individual’s training requirements. To ensure high quality training, the Medicine Hat and Lethbridge sites function as a unit of the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Calgary, allowing access to the full academic resources of the parent institution.
Throughout the first year, two 8-week family medicine rotations are scheduled at one of our core rural sites. Each 8-week rotation is completed in a different site so residents can experience a different flavor of rural family medicine. The year consists of specialty rotations primarily at the regional base hospital, maintaining the sense of family medicine context with weekly full day sessions in a community family practice clinic. The Family Medicine rotations have been designed to facilitate exposure to a wide variety of acute conditions and to the acquisition of procedural skills. Often the Resident is the only learner on the team ensuring access to clinical cases combined with individualized teaching. The regional hospitals are not dependent on the presence of house staff, with the agreeable consequence that on-call for most rotations is from home.
The main thrust of the R2 year is to develop the Resident as a rural Family Physician, building on the skills and attitudes acquired in the first year. The key feature of the second year is 24 weeks of experience in Rural Family Medicine. Most of these sites have busy emergency rooms and active surgical and obstetrical programs reflecting the full range of rural family practice. This lengthy family medicine exposure in the second year provides opportunities to experience continuity of care and the time to accomplish the requirements of the integrated programs in care of the elderly, psychiatry, and palliative care.
Eight weeks are available for electives in the first year and six weeks in the second year, allowing Residents to tailor the postgraduate experience to meet their individual needs and interests. Interprovincial and international electives are available for 2 blocks in the 2 years, with the permission of your home base Site Director and the Program Director. Interprovincial and international electives will not be paid for by the UofC.
Spring conference is held each year in conjunction with the Calgary-based Family Medicine residents. The Conference provides opportunities for team building as well as providing more time to cover topics and themes relevant to Family Medicine with invited speakers. Costs for the conference is covered by the Program.
We want to ensure that you have accurate information about our program and various opportunities to meet our residents, faculty, and leadership team. We strongly encourage applicants to check out the following to learn more about the University of Calgary FM programs:
Program website
Department of Family Medicine’s Instagram and Twitter accounts
Virtual Meet and Greets (advertised on the AFMC National Web Calendar)
It is expected that Residents will utilize their own transport when travelling to and from teaching sites, both within their home site, and for rotations outside the city. A current driver’s license and access to a vehicle are mandatory in the U of C Rural Family Medicine Program due to the distances between teaching sites.
Your chief resident is your first point of contact when it comes to concerns, questions, or issues. Chief residents sit on all Program Committees (e.g. Resident Program Committee-RPC, Curriculum and Evaluation Committee-CEC, Postgraduate Executive Committee-PGEC, etc.) to ensure the resident perspective is always heard and appreciated.
For the 2023 Selection process, Rural Family Medicine will have 8 CMG positions in the Medicine Hat site, 10 CMG positions in the Lethbridge site. Although the Rural Programs in Medicine Hat and Lethbridge function together as one program, candidates must submit an application to both sites if they are interested in both sites. An application to add onto the other site may be considered during the interview period.
