An initiative of
Dr. Robert Cushman
Program Director
Bonnie Thornbury
The Public Health and Preventive Medicine (PHPM) residency program at the University of Ottawa (uOttawa) offers the opportunity for residents to receive comprehensive PHPM specialty training while living and working in the beautiful city of Ottawa. We offer a mix of local, provincial, and federal public health training opportunities that are unique to our region: Ottawa Public Health, Centre Intégré de santé et de services sociaux de l’Outaouais, Public Health Ontario, Department of National Defence, Indigenous Services Canada – First Nations and Inuit Health Branch, the Public Health Agency of Canada, and more.
Many recreational and cultural opportunities are available in Ottawa and surrounding areas, and residents are encouraged to take advantage of what the community has to offer in their pursuit of a healthy work-life balance.
Our educational program is carefully designed to provide residents with wonderful learning opportunities. We offer training in both official languages, in rural as well as urban settings. Our aim is to prepare residents to independently practice PHPM at the local, provincial, and federal levels. After having completed training in the foundations of PHPM, residents will gradually assume increasing levels of responsibility, culminating in opportunities to act as a specialist consultant, at the level of an Associate Medical Officer of Health, or both.
Training experiences include academic courses and seminars, experience-based learning (rotations and field trips), resident co-directed collaborative learning (e.g. academic half-day), teaching undergraduate medical students and other health professionals, and self-directed learning that may include online training modules, directed reading and research/scholarly projects. The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (Royal College) establishes the required and recommended training experiences for all PHPM residency programs in Canada. Residents in the Family Medicine stream also need to meet the training requirements of the College of Family Physicians of Canada.
Our PHPM residency program is committed to tailoring training to residents’ learning needs. Formative assessments are used to support reflective practice and help residents address their learning needs. Through PULSE 360-Degree Surveys, all uOttawa residents obtain feedback about their leadership competencies and emotional intelligence from their supervisors, public health staff, peers, and junior learners.
Our program values self-reflection and personal growth. uOttawa provides residents with opportunities to learn through courses, conferences, and workshops. Residents receive funding to attend the annual National PHPM Review Course hosted by Queen’s University and the University of British Columbia. Residents are each allocated a fund to attend conferences, special training events, online modules, and to acquire educational resources.
Residents attend special academic sessions such as media training with professional media relations staff at the Eastern Ontario Health Unit, emergency preparedness and response simulations, and field trips to places like water treatment plants, and the provincial public health laboratory. Our program is flexible and responsive to residents’ learning needs, allowing residents to participate in learning opportunities as they arise such the Canadian Field Epidemiology Program’s “Epi in Action” course. The program takes pride in co-leadership with residents and its continuous quality improvement. The Program Director and Administrator meet with the Lead Resident and elected Resident Representative at least monthly.
COVID-19 vaccination
Please be aware that most, if not all, hospitals in Ontario have mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policies in place that require, in the absence of a valid medical or human rights exemption, proof of vaccination. Acceptable vaccination must be in accordance with Health Canada. You will be required to provide an attestation that you meet this requirement as part of the CaRMS application process and any actual documentation will be collected by the appropriate institution if matched. These guidelines could change at any time in accordance with future direction from the Ministry of Health or the Universities based on information from Public Health.
MCCQE (Medical Council of Canada qualifying examination) Part 1 results:
Trainees will be required to disclose their MCCQE Part 1 examination results if taken, upon entry into any of the University of Ottawa’s training programs. Please note that the MCCQE Part 1 is not a requirement to begin residency. The purpose of this disclosure is to allow for resources to be provided to the few residents who would benefit from extra support early in their residency in an effort to maximize their success.
Failure to meet or provide proof of any of the stated requirements may result in an applicant’s file not being reviewed or removed from the Rank Order List.
About PHPM
Applicants will be accepted into the residency program according to the norms of CaRMS. As soon as the match results are announced, we will contact successful candidates to assign residents to the clinical rotations and teaching sites. The residency training program reserves the right to determine placement according to the capacity of individual training sites.
Residents are responsible for making their own travel arrangements to training sites. Because some of the training sites are rural health units, residents are recommended to have a valid driver’s license in Ontario & have access to an automobile.
All residents receive full access to the University of Ottawa library holdings. This includes electronic search engines, electronic indexes, and the electronic medical/health journals to which the university subscribes.
Residents have access to the Ottawa Hospital Medical Library and services. l.
Residents have access to wellness supports including counselling through the Faculty of Medicine’s Faculty Affairs Office.
PHPM residents do NOT have to complete a Master’s Degree. However, the Royal College requires that PHPM residents complete certain academic training. The Residency Program Committee determines the academic requirements as a whole, but for each resident, the specifics of training will be planned with the Academic Advisor in consultation with the Program Director. Individualized recommendations for training will be made, if required. If the Academic Advisor advises the Program Director that the resident has completed the required training (as defined by the Residency Program Committee based on the Royal College requirements for PHPM Training Programs), you are not obliged to complete any further academic training. The Program Director at University of Ottawa will confirm these decisions in discussion with the resident.
Residents without a Master’s degree are strongly supported by the program to complete a Master’s degree.
Residents who are successful in their Family Medicine exams may apply for an independent license in the province of Ontario. Residents remain employees of the University of Ottawa, which is their first responsibility. When in possession of an independent license, residents may practice (and bill) as Family Medicine physicians on their own time i.e. when not working on rotation or on call.
The Program Director retains the authority to require that every resident maintains the standards of the training program, which may include requiring that an under-performing resident ceases independent clinical practice. To date, this has not occurred within our program.
Residents may take the equivalent of ½ day per week to practice clinical medicine as part of the program in an appropriate supervised family medicine setting. All the conditions for an elective rotation must be satisfied, including appropriate supervision, development of objectives of training, assessment and appropriate permissions from the program director, Residency Program Committee and the supervisor for the substantive rotation within which the clinical rotation is nested.
