New doctors will have the opportunity to complete their entire postgraduate training in Kamloops with the launch of a new family practice residency site based at Royal Inland Hospital and community clinics, Health Minister Terry Lake announced today.

Also, a new emergency medicine residency training site in Kelowna is being launched, along with the Vancouver Coastal Health site for family practice residencies in North Vancouver.

“Training family practitioners here in Kamloops gives them an opportunity to discover this great region and they will hopefully return for their practice careers,” said Lake.

In July, the family practice residency site in Kamloops accepted its first six resident physicians: Drs. Paul Dickinson, Harpreet Ghuman, Quinn Hamilton, Robert McKeough, Elizabeth Montgomery and Brittany Weaver.

These doctors will complete two years of postgraduate medical training to meet the requirements of the College of Family Physicians of Canada. They will have the opportunity to work with a range of physicians and health professionals to master their technical skills, while developing strong roots in the community.

“These new residency programs are great news for families in B.C.’s Interior and Coastal regions, and will provide them with better access to medical care, closer to where they live,” said Advanced Education Minister Amrik Virk. “The programs also provide student doctors with an invaluable opportunity to gain experience and work in their communities.”

“The new family practice residency site in Kamloops will allow for more of our students to continue their training in the Interior and inevitably support the long-term recruitment and retention of physicians in our communities," said Dr. Allan Jones, UBC’s faculty of medicine regional associate dean (Interior).

The expansion of the family practice residency program is part of a combined effort by the provincial government, health authorities, UBC faculty of medicine, and communities to support the recruitment and retention of physicians to serve the health-care needs of families throughout B.C.

“It’s important to be training doctors throughout the province of B.C.,” said Dr. Selena Lawrie, site director of the family medicine residency program in Kamloops. “The residency program not only helps to meet the needs of under-resourced communities, but sites, like Kamloops, provide an ideal training ground for young doctors.”

A professional medical community, like that found in Kamloops, exposes residents to diverse clinical settings and a wide variety of patient experiences over the course of their residency.

Over the past several years, UBC’s postgraduate training programs have continued to steadily grow, with over 1,400 medical residents presently engaged in 67 different postgraduate programs offered at more than 100 clinical training sites in every area of the province. This year, nearly half the residencies — a record number — are designated for family medicine, where the need is great.

“The continued expansion of postgraduate training in the Interior is a testament to our commitment to delivering timely, quality care to ensure better health care for all our patients,” said Norman Embree, Interior Health board chair.

2014 marks the 10th anniversary of the UBC MD distributed program. Expansion of UBC’s medical school to the B.C. Interior has helped increase the annual enrolment of new medical undergraduates provincially to 288 - more than double the number of spaces from 10 years ago. 

Medical students entering the Southern Medical Program, which began operation in September 2011, complete two years of undergraduate academic training at UBC Okanagan and the newly built, clinical teaching campus at Kelowna General Hospital. They transition to area hospitals and clinics for their third and fourth year, gaining essential hands-on clinical experience on their path to becoming a doctor.

UBC’s family practice residency training program is a two-year program that prepares new doctors with the skills and experience they need to become licensed family physicians. UBC’s family practice program is distributed throughout the province, involving 16 educational sites, where residents work with a wide range of physicians and health professionals to advance their technical skills, while learning about the unique health needs and lifestyle of the communities. 

A backgrounder follows.

Media Contacts:

Kristy Anderson
Media Relations Manager
Ministry of Health
250 952-1887 (media line)

Tracy Watson
Communications Officer
Interior Health
250 574-1523

Paul Marck
Manager, Media Relations
University of British Columbia, Okanagan campus
250 807-9278
paul.marck@ubc.ca

Warren Brock
Admissions and Communications Coordinator
University of British Columbia, UBC Southern Medical Program
250 807-8601
warren.brock@ubc.ca

BACKGROUNDER

New residency training sites launch

The following are new residency training site locations announced today:

Kamloops

• A new family practice residency training site, based at Royal Inland Hospital.
• In July, the Kamloops site accepted its first six resident physicians: Drs. Paul Dickinson, Harpreet Ghuman, Quinn Hamilton, Robert McKeough, Elizabeth Montgomery and Brittany Weaver.
• Over the course of the two-year family practice training program, residents will gain experience working in community clinics and medical offices and take on a range of traditional rotations, such as psychiatry, surgery and paediatrics, in addition to a number of unique family practice rotations in residential, palliative and hospital care.

Kelowna

• A new emergency medicine residency training site at Kelowna General Hospital.
• In July, the Kelowna site accepted its first two Royal College emergency resident physicians: Drs. Daniel Ting and Jared Baylis.
• Over the course of the five-year emergency medicine training program, residents will take on a range of rotations in emergency medicine, while gaining exposure to other disciplines including cardiology, orthopedics, plastic surgery, neurosciences, internal medicine, psychiatry and pediatrics, as well as obstetrics and gynecology.

Coastal (North Vancouver)

• A new family practice residency site based at Lions Gate Hospital.
• In July, the North Vancouver site accepted its first eight resident physicians: Drs. Jessica Palmer, Mitra Motamedi, Phillip Simpson, Jeannette Evans, Kaitlin Graham, Krista McKee, Payman Nabai, and Charlotte Philippson.
• As part of the two-year family practice training program, these residents will take on a number of clinical placements in communities stretching from Squamish, Whistler and Pemberton through to the Sunshine Coast.

The UBC faculty of medicine offers family medicine and 66 specialty and sub-specialty residency training programs. Clinical training is widely distributed throughout the province of British Columbia.

In particular, the family practice residency program offers training at 16 educational sites in communities throughout the province, ranging from Prince George and Vancouver through to Nanaimo and Chilliwack.

Media Contacts:

Kristy Anderson
Media Relations Manager
Ministry of Health
250 952-1887 (media line)

Tracy Watson
Communications Officer
Interior Health
250 574-1523

Paul Marck
Manager, Media Relations
University of British Columbia, Okanagan campus
250 807-9278
paul.marck@ubc.ca

Warren Brock
Admissions and Communications Coordinator
University of British Columbia, UBC Southern Medical Program
250 807-8601
warren.brock@ubc.ca