The University Of British Columbia Division Of Nephrology offers a 2 year residency in Nephrology which is accredited by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. Applicants must have completed a three year residency in internal medicine.

The program is based in Vancouver at Vancouver General Hospital (VGH) and St Paul’s Hospital (SPH). Each hospital provides the full range of nephrology services, including general nephrology clinics, chronic kidney disease clinics, hemodialysis (both outpatient and in-centre nocturnal), peritoneal dialysis, transplantation and in-patient nephrology. Between them, the two hospitals provide tertiary and quaternary referral services for the Province, with a population of approximately 4 million people, and VGH is one of the largest hospitals in Canada with approximately 600 acute care beds. St Paul’s Hospital includes a small maternity ward offering some opportunity for exposure to complications of pregnancy, while VGH operates a busy burns and trauma service and neurosurgery, and both hospitals provide most other specialty medical and surgical services and critical care. The renal services at VGH also include a large home hemodialysis program.

The Division of Nephrology currently has 25 full time Nephrologists working at the two main sites. The residents have an office at each hospital with computers and internet access. Internet resources including UpToDate are offered by the hospitals. Nephrology residents do call from home one weekend per month and up to a total of eight nights per block in accordance with Resident Doctors of BC Contracts. There is presently internal medicine residents in-house at both sites every night cross covering medical subspecialties.

The Division also offers clinical fellowships in hemodialysis, peritoneal dialysis and home hemodialysis depending upon funding, and there is an AST accredited transplant fellowship. Trainees are also encouraged to pursue additional research training through programs such as KRESCENT and the Clinician Investigator Program.

Formal academic programs include an academic half day on Monday afternoons, at least one noon journal club/teaching session per week, monthly or biweekly Grand Rounds with visiting speakers or local faculty presenting, and a formal pathology curriculum of monthly sessions which repeats annually. Residents present at evening journal clubs approximately every 2 months.

Residents are assigned a faculty supervisor for their once a week longitudinal clinic, which starts in the third month and is protected time away from clinical rotations.

Trainees will be required to attend the CSN annual meeting and funding is available for this. Attendance at other national and international conferences is encouraged, and funding is guaranteed if the resident is presenting original research. Five week days of conference leave per year is permitted, not including time spent presenting ones own research.