This residency program is for 2 years.

Program length of training does not exceed the Royal College or College of Family Physicians of Canada standard.

As of July 2019, the Pediatric Rheumatology Subspecialty Training Program has adopted the Royal College’s Competence By Design (CBD) curriculum. Under this new curriculum, trainees have their educational experiences structured within a 2-year time period by stages:

1) Transition to Discipline – 2 months

2) Foundations of Discipline – 4 months

3) Core of Discipline – 16 months

4) Transition to Practice – 2 months

Promotion from one stage of training to another will be based on successful completion of a designated number of observations as relates to specific Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs), e.g., Recognizing rheumatologic emergencies and following up appropriately. Promotion will be a decision made by a Competency Committee as a collective. This committee will consist of the program director, a Chair, and a clinician outside the specialty of training, at minimum. For more information on CBD, please visit http://www.royalcollege.ca/rcsite/cbd/rationale-why-cbd-e. All EPAs are documented via Entrada, an electronic documentation platform supported by the University of British Columbia.

It is anticipated that training experiences within the CBD curriculum will be as follows:

First year: 5 clinical (outpatient) blocks, 5 clinical (inpatient, including infusion and joint injection clinics) blocks, 1 elective, 2 research blocks. 4 weeks vacation.

Second year: 4 clinical (outpatient) blocks, 4 clinical (inpatient, including infusion and joint injection clinics ) blocks, 2 elective, 2 research blocks, 1 Adult Rheumatology block. 4 weeks vacation.

There are a number of outpatient clinics including arthritis clinics, connective tissue disease clinics, transition clinics (attended by both pediatric and adult rheumatology trainees and faculty), combined renal / rheumatology clinics, combined dermatology/rheumatology, combined neurology / rheumatology clinics, auto-inflammatory disease clinics and a fellows clinic.  Senior residents also have the opportunity to participate in outreach clinics (Surrey, Terrace, Prince George). All residents will participate in a longitudinal clinic starting in their first year of training.

In addition to these specific rotations, a number of learning experiences are ongoing. These include weekly Radiology rounds, academic half-day, Pediatric Grand Rounds; biweekly journal club and biweekly academic rounds (consensus treatment guidelines, quality assurance / quality improvement);  monthly renal histopathology rounds, research meetings; quarterly morbidity and mortality rounds, and pediatric subspecialty resident CanMEDs rounds. Several site-wide learning opportunities occur on an annual or biannual basis. These include series of presentations on Evidence Based Medicine, an immunology course, an epidemiology course, a statistics course and a resident teaching course. An annual week long orientation to Rheumatology (Basic Skills in Rheumatology) course presented by the Adult Rheumatology program is attended by pediatrics residents. Residents are also encouraged and funded to attend national and international scientific conferences.

Of note, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the majority of outpatient care is still delivered in person with the addition of virtual (telephone and Zoom) clinics for non-urgent cases. A smaller number of off-service residents have been scheduled to prioritize learning for rheumatology trainees. Clinical meetings and the majority of formal scheduled teaching is also done virtually until further notice and will be guided by university, hospital and public health policies moving forward.