— Site General Information —

Kamloops is a friendly and welcoming community of 90,000 people ideally located in south central British Columbia. This geographically unique region is known for its mild winters and long warm summers. The beautiful outdoors in the Kamloops region is the perfect playground for a vast array of recreational opportunities. The city itself values and promotes active living. Kamloops is known as Canada’s “Tournament Capital” having played host to thousands of Provincial, Western Canadian, National and International sporting events. Kamloops is home to many world class sporting facilities. Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops has a thriving campus environment. Kamloops also has its own symphony orchestra and many theatre and live music venues. Our 6400 seat coliseum hosts big ticket concerts and is home to the WHL Kamloops Blazers hockey team. Kamloops has safe and affordable housing as well as excellent schools. A thriving local economy provides many employment opportunities if you are coming to Kamloops with a partner. In Kamloops, you will be immersed in a fulfilling family practice residency program while also enjoying an active, healthy and positive lifestyle.  

Resources

Our city is the referral center for the larger Thompson-Cariboo-Nicola region of approximately 125,000 people. Royal Inland Hospital is a tertiary care hospital with the third busiest ER department in British Columbia. The hospital is a recognized trauma center. There are 244 acute care beds with an additional 8 bed NICU. We have approximately 320 physicians on staff, including close to 80 family physicians with either active or associate privileges. Community services and residential care are robust, with a current culture of family practice engagement in system change. Our Thompson Region Division of Family Practice is a leader in work on primary health care integration and communication across health care professions.  

UBC Family Medicine

Family Medicine training in BC presents you with many unique opportunities. We are a fully accredited distributed program with 20 training sites. In an effort to meet the evolving needs of our society, each site provides a solid foundation in the knowledge and clinical skills of Family Medicine so that our graduates are prepared to practice in a variety of settings. While our program offers diversity of training, it is based on common goals, learning objectives, and assessment standards. All residents are required to do a mandatory 2-month rural rotation in Family Medicine in their second year. Residents in the Coastal, or rural programs in the Okanagan or the North complete longer rural placements. Residents can also apply to participate in Enhanced Rural training for a total of 4-6 months in rural communities. There is extensive academic and administrative support for the entire residency program. Our central program administrative team is based in Vancouver on UBC campus. At the site level, leadership teams are made up of a Site Director, Site Faculty, Chief Residents and administrators. Lead Program Faculty provide provincial education support in the areas of curriculum, assessment, faculty development, scholarship and behavioral medicine. The Family Practice Postgraduate Education Committee has representation from all sites to ensure a connected, distributed program that fully meets accreditation standards. Residents are represented at all levels of governance. A wide range of amazing recreational and cultural opportunities are at your doorstep, as well as a collegial community of residents and physicians with whom you can learn, grow, and play. We want your experience to be in BC to be a positive and enjoyable one.  

Training Sites: Overview

Visit the UBC Family Medicine Postgraduate website for a detailed overview of each of the 20 sites and their surrounding communities. Each site provides opportunities to experience Family Medicine in their unique context, offering special opportunities to gain experience and skills unique to the area where you are training. The following is a list of our sites and their base community/hospital. Each site serves the surrounding community (see training sites for full details) Greater Vancouver / Lower Mainland

• Abbotsford-Mission
• Coastal (North Vancouver, Lion’s Gate Hospital)
• Chilliwack
• Indigenous (Greater Vancouver and rural Indigenous communities)
• St. Paul’s (Downtown Vancouver, Inner City)
• Surrey South Fraser (Surrey Memorial Hospital)
• Vancouver Fraser (New Westminster, Royal Columbian)

Interior Region

• Kootenay Boundary (Trail, Nelson, Rossland, Castlegar)
• Kelowna Rural (Kelowna R1 year; rural communities across BC in R2 year)
• Kelowna Regional
• Okanagan South (Penticton)
• Kamloops
• North Okanagan (Vernon)

Vancouver Island

• Indigenous (Victoria, Duncan, Ladysmith and rural Indigenous communities)
• Nanaimo
• Strathcona (Comox, Campbell River and Courtenay)
• Victoria
• Quw’utsun (Cowichan)

Northern

• Fort St. John (Northeast)
• Northern Rural (Prince George R1 year; rural communities across BC in R2 year)
• Prince George
• Terrace (Rural Northwest)
• Rural Immersion (Communities: Smithers, Vanderhoof, Chetwynd/Tumbler Ridge, Mackenzie, Valemount/McBride, Hazelton)

IMG positions are offered at the following sites:

• Abbotsford-Mission
• Chilliwack
• Coastal
• Fort St. John
• Kamloops
• Kootenay Boundary
• Nanaimo
• Okanagan South
• Kelowna Rural
• Kelowna Regional
• North Okanagan
• Prince George
• Strathcona
• St. Paul’s
• Surrey South Fraser
• Vancouver Fraser
• Victoria

Resident Support

Resident resilience and wellness is our top priority. Important resources have been developed by our program to support our residents throughout the course of the training. All UBC programs are allocated a fixed amount of funding per resident for Resident Activities. This funding is used to provide educational support to residents during their 2 years of training. This includes funding for residents to attend program-wide courses and events. Additionally, residents may identify conferences and educational materials that would supplement their training experience. A discretionary, per resident funding will also be allocated to the sites for a similar purpose at the site level.