— Streams and Training Templates —

Western

Stream Lead: Dr. Erin Smallwood

The Western Stream (WestFam) of Memorial University’s Family Medicine Residency Program is based within the western region of the island of Newfoundland and offers a two year Rural Family Medicine Residency that aims to train physicians to be confident and competent to practice within a wide range of rural settings.

The Western Region

Western Health’s geographical boundaries serve a population of approximately 78 000 people. The region spans from Port aux Basques, southeast to Francois, northwest to Bartlett’s Harbour, and on the eastern boundary north to Jackson’s Arm.

Western Health provides a broad range of programs and services to the people of western Newfoundland. These programs and services are based in community and facility settings.

The region boasts community based services from 26 office sites; community based medical services from 26 medical clinic sites (including traveling clinic sites); and eight health facilities.

Educational Opportunities

With a broad range of medical illnesses, a diverse patient population, and a variety of practice opportunities, the region is poised to offer rich training opportunities for family medicine residents.

The combination of inpatient and community based practices, involvement of specialty colleagues (including palliative care, general surgery, orthopedic surgery, internal medicine, pediatrics and obstetrics/gynecology), and access to diverse practices in more remote communities, all add to the educational opportunities within the Western Stream.

Teaching Sites

The Western Stream offers opportunities to engage in residency training within a number of teaching sites located throughout the western region including: Port Aux Basques, Stephenville, Corner Brook, Deer Lake and Bonne Bay.

All of these sites combined offer a distributed learning system with opportunities for small group learning sessions, family medicine rounds and medical rounds.

Templates

Templates within the Western Stream will allow residents to work and live in several areas of the western region for the majority of their two-year training period. Collectively, these sites offer a wide range of practical experiences with broad scope family medicine including:

• shared care obstetrics;
• newborn, pediatric and adolescent care;
• women’s and men’s health;
• mental health counseling and psychotherapy;
• geriatric and palliative care;
• inpatient hospital care;
• occupational medicine;
• minor procedures;
• home visits, house calls (on a case by case basis);
• emergency medicine; and
• interdisciplinary care.

Lifestyle

In addition to the variety of training opportunities, the western region of the island of Newfoundland offers a wide range of extracurricular opportunities in which to enhance your lifestyle and promote a healthy work life balance. There is so much to see and do in this area of the province – whether it is engaging in our rich arts community through theater, dance or visual arts, challenging yourself with our breathtaking, rugged terrain or embracing the diversity of our dynamic ocean playgrounds – all residents can become actively involved in almost any aspect.

The residency training program in Family Medicine at Memorial is an accredited residency training program through the College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC). It leads to eligibility to sit the certification exam 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. 

Why Memorial?

There are many reasons to come to Memorial University for Family Medicine training! To name a few:

• Urban, rural and remote training opportunities
• Often you are the only resident on service
• Tailored teaching, given low learner to preceptor numbers
• Excellent learning opportunities
• Travel to and from training sites for core training is covered
• Dedicated preceptors
• Four weeks of vacation per year
• $1000 per year towards conference leave or ATLS course completion

What Are Our Unique Learning Opportunities?

• Training is offered in urban, rural and remote communities
• Remote opportunities in Goose Bay, NL or Iqaluit, NU
  
• Flight medicine in Goose Bay or Iqaluit
• Transfer medicine across many training sites
• Point of Care Ultrasound Training (PoCUS) when available
• Certification in Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS), Advances in Labour and Risk Management (ALARM), Neonatal Resuscitation Program (NRP), and Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) training is offered, when possible
• ACLS is offered through Eastern Health at a reduced rate. The Family Medicine Residency Training Program covers the cost of ALARM & NRP. Residents are provided with $1000 per year towards conference leave or ATLS course completion
• Stunning landscape
• Outdoor activities across all training sites
• Vibrant arts scene — culture, music, dance, film