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Memorial University of Newfoundland
Goose Bay
Stream Lead: Dr. Robert Forsey
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The Goose Bay Stream is the perfect match for candidates who wish to pursue rural and remote training!
A core of dedicated teachers is almost entirely made up of former residents — we have 11 NorFam graduates practicing here and teaching.
Six residents in the Goose Bay Stream will complete the majority of their longitudinal integrated training in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, NL. There is good exposure to office-based family practice, emergency medicine and pediatrics. Goose Bay gives an excellent exposure to Indigenous health and rural and remote medicine. Residents also have the opportunity to enhance these experiences by completing some rotations in Newfoundland and Labrador and/or New Brunswick, e.g. internal medicine, ICU, obstetrics and gynecology.
Typical Goose Bay learning includes:
Over an extended period of time residents can provide continuity of care for patients and their families in a wide variety of settings (for example from emergency room to inpatient unit, followed up with care in the patients’ home community). Residents can experience the provision of care to patients who are sick and help them maintain health when they are well . They look after patients at birth, provide end of life care, and cover all points in between.
The residency training program in Family Medicine at Memorial is an accredited residency training program through the College of Family Physicians of Canada. It leads to eligibility to sit the certification exams of the CFPC. This program uses the unique medical, geographic and cultural characteristics of Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick and Nunavut to train family physicians for rural/remote practice.
There are many reasons to come to Memorial for Family Medicine training! To name a few:
Please refer to the Curriculum and Information sections.
“It’s a privilege to be training residents who can work anywhere in Canada — residents who are able to work in the most difficult and trying conditions in the Canadian North. [NorFam] exposes residents to a variety of clinical situations where they have to practice to the upper limit of their ability; it challenges them while at the same time providing sufficient supervision and back-up.”
— Yordan Karaivanov, NorFam teacher
“NorFam is a combination of acuity and continuity — you see someone when they’re sick, you admit them to hospital under yourself, and then — the most rewarding part — you get to follow them up in your clinic. You follow them through that whole process, build that relationship, get to know their family, and get to see them be well again.”
— Nora Purcell, NorFam PGY2 resident (2020 grad)
“NorFam is a stronghold of rural generalism, and that’s something that’s kind of dying out elsewhere… This is a place where you can learn to be a true generalist; where nothing is outside the realm of possibility.”
— Kathryn Versteeg, NorFam teacher (and NorFam resident 2013-15)
“Where else can you be where you start the day delivering a baby, you work in clinic and see a few patients, and then finish the day on a helicopter trip to an isolated community to pick up a critically ill patient?”
— Mike Curran, NorFam PGY2 resident (2020 grad)
“At my MUN interview I met Kathryn Versteeg, and I asked her a question my mom had told me to ask: “What do all of the residents that choose to come to Goose Bay have in common?” — And she looked dramatically off into the distance, and then said “Courage.” And at the time I was like ‘Ok, cool answer’ and then as I thought about it later, I realized that I want to do that — I want to be challenged, I want to have to think creatively, in a difficult but really stimulating environment, and I want to be a clinician and person with courage. And I can say, being a year and a half in, that it is absolutely true. Being around people that emulate that and having staff that are not only phenomenal doctors but really phenomenal humans; demonstrating how to give care in a courageous and very kind way has been an awesome experience.”
— Caroline Patterson, NorFam PGY2 (2020 grad)
While we don’t have an ‘urban’ stream, our eastern training stream provides the vast majority of training in our urban center — St. John’s, NL. Please see the Eastern Stream information.
Residency positions are contingent on funding, but normally the following 12 month positions are available within the Enhanced Skills programs:
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The program information on this website is in the language that the program is offered in.
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