We rotate through five core emergency rooms — North York General Hospital, Sunnybrook, St. Mike’s, and University Health Network (Toronto General and Toronto Western)

By the end of your 5 years you spend roughly the same amount of time at each place on Emergency Medicine

Our off service rotations are often at specific hospitals. For example, orthopedics is always done at Sunnybrook because you get great exposure to orthopedic trauma. Obs/Gyn and Peds Wards are always done at North York because there are amazing bread and butter cases and a small learner: staff ratio as it is a community hospital.

Our trauma learning experience is incredible. We have two large trauma centers in the city that see an incredibly high volume of trauma- up to 15 traumas a day. There is nowhere better to get TTL and hands on experience.

Each emergency room has its own unique patient population that makes up a significant part of the visits:

• St. Mike’s has a large inner city health with significant addiction medicine and mental health comorbidities.
  
• Toronto General is a transplant center and sees many patients with transplant complications and comorbidities.
  
• Sunnybrook has a large elderly population and oncology population.
  
• North York General is a community hospital which sees a number of children, and lots of bread and butter emergency medicine.
  

We are lucky to have a great group of staff that are very involved with the residents! Even if you have not worked with a staff before in the ED you have likely been taught by them at academic day or met them at one of our many social events.

Even when you are off service staff will bring you into interesting cases or grab a snack with you! You always feel at home in the ED.

We have an academic full day every Wednesday! In the morning we have Rosen’s Rounds where we cover two chapters from Rosen’s and then we have resident or staff presentations after Rosen’s Rounds. Every resident does a presentation every year.

In the afternoon we have small group sessions that vary week to week but include SIM, epidemiology, ethics, QI, and geriatrics.

There are lots of teaching opportunities to get involved in! We have the opportunity to teach medical students formally as tutors for their courses as well as less formally as part of the Emergency Medicine Interest Group.

There are lots of learners in Toronto so as you become more senior you will have the opportunity to teach medical students and junior residents on shift which is an amazing opportunity!

You can find research in any topic you are interested in! Whether it be QI, EMS, toxicology, addictions, etc. there are physicians doing research in this area. We are fortunate to have access to great research resources and staff.

A little bit of everything! We have incredible cuisine with new restaurants also opening up. The music scene is great with both small and big shows playing across the city every night of the week.

If you want to hit up the outdoors we have some amazing spots- bike or run on the Don Valley trail, catch a wave (yes, we’re serious) at the Scarborough Bluffs, or head just outside of the city to cottage country.

We love our big family! Our residents hang out all the time unofficially at trivia nights, pubs, or getting some exercise. Lots of our residents have dogs and families of their own so there are activities to suit everyone. If you don’t have a lot of spare time that is okay too! Because there are so many of us there is a wide variety of social involvement.

Officially each year we have a summer and a winter retreat for resident bonding. Outside of that we also have an annual golf day (it’s okay if you’ve never swung a club- lots of us haven’t either!), welcome BBQ for the new PGY1s, and more Christmas parties than physically possible to attend (each hospital has their own!).