Site Director Message

Lead Resident Message

We’re so glad you stopped by to learn more about the best Family Medicine Residency Site UBC has to offer! Abbotsford is the “city in the country” with a growing population of over 150,000, offering all the amenities of a city (even a Costco) with nature and mountains quite literally right at your doorstep. It is home to Abbotsford Regional Hospital and Cancer Center where residents will do all their inpatient rotations. Some residents will do their primary Family Practice clinics in Mission, which is about 15 minutes away by car. The smaller Mission Memorial Hospital is also located there.

Our program is a tight-knit one. With a smaller cohort size of about 8-9 residents, you will become close with not only your co-residents but also program staff and faculty. The medical community in Abbotsford is also very friendly and collegial; you will become well acquainted with family physicians, specialists, and allied health alike. There is a strong family physician presence both in the community and in the hospital, and we have a very active Divisions of Family Practice that will warmly welcome you to the community.

Our graduates have gone on to practice full-service Family Medicine, Hospitalist Medicine, Rural Medicine, Emergency Medicine, Maternity Care, Palliative Care, Addictions Medicine, Sports Medicine, Prison Medicine, and even Psychiatry. Many of them have stayed in Abbotsford and you may work with them in your Family Practice clinic or in the hospital. It is our goal to have well-balanced, capable, and happy graduates that are fully able to practice the entire spectrum of Family Medicine. To that end, we have maximized flexibility within the program so that you can build your skills wherever your interests and needs lie. Whatever your future career goals are, our site is the site for you!

Highlights of Our Program

Goldilocks Size… Not Too Big, Not Too Small

• As the only residency program in Abbotsford, our residents usually work one-on-one with staff. You will be first in line for consults, procedures in the ER, and deliveries  C-sections on the maternity ward, and intubations on Anesthesia.
• That being said, the hospital runs efficiently without residents. This translates to fewer service requirements and more time spent learning. Preceptors see your work as an appreciated extra set of hands as opposed to an expectation.
• Family doctors are at the core of inpatient care. The majority of medical patients are admitted under the Hospitalist service, which manages all types of interesting and complex clinical presentations. At the same time, ARHCC is a tertiary hospital and the regional center for the Fraser Valley receiving transfers from Mission, Chilliwack, Hope, Langley, Maple Ridge, etc. We have consultants in almost every specialty minus neurosurgery and cardiothoracic surgery. In addition to CCU and ICU, we have a Pediatrics ward and NICU, a locked Psychiatric ward, a tertiary Palliative Care Unit, and an Oncology ward that benefits from being adjacent to the BC Cancer Centre. This means excellent opportunities to manage sick patients and plenty of exposure to rare conditions.

Special Rotations

• The rotations that stand out to us are too many to list, but we thought we would highlight a few here…
• Emergency Medicine (6 weeks) – ARHCC is a busy Level 3 trauma centre and our Emergency Department is entirely staffed by FRCP (EM) and CCFP (EM) graduates. You will get a lot of hands-on experience including laceration repair, splinting/casting, chest tube insertion and other procedures, point-of-care ultrasound, and codes/resuscitations.
• Obstetrics (4 weeks) – Residents are involved with all the Family Practice and Obstetrician deliveries as well as patients that come through triage. The Abbotsford Maternity Group is staffed by family physicians who do exclusively maternity and as a result, are among the most competent mentors to learn from. There is ample opportunity for hands-on experience including participating in deliveries, repairing lacerations, first assisting in C-sections, performing maternity care examinations, and practicing with ultrasound.
• Anesthesia (2 weeks) – This rotation is primarily airway-focused. You are not obligated to stay in one room, but instead are free to hop between rooms, maximizing time spent working on your intubation skills. Residents typically get around thirty intubations over the course of the two weeks.
• Youth Clinic – On our Pediatric and Psychiatry rotations, we spend time at Foundry Abbotsford, a truly unique place that caters to vulnerable youth.
• Palliative Care (4 weeks) – This is an excellent inpatient experience on our own tertiary care unit. This unit is run by very friendly family and internal medicine physicians with extra training in Palliative Medicine. New in 2020 was the inclusion of the LEAP course in our academic half-day curriculum.
• Addictions (2 weeks) – This is our only core rotation away from ARHCC. Residents work with the addictions service at Surrey Memorial Hospital and become certified in methadone prescribing.
• Our residents also complete rotations on Cardiology (outpatient and CCU), Hospitalist Medicine, Nephrology, General Surgery, Orthopedic Surgery – unique opportunities to focus on some of the higher-yield but often-confusing conditions seen in Family Medicine.
• Lastly, we have an excellent ICU elective elective that many of our residents do in R2.

Longitudinal Family Medicine

• Abbotsford-Mission allows you to provide real continuity of care to a very diverse patient population. Throughout your two years here, you have at least one afternoon per week with your Family Practice preceptor. Patients are scheduled on your half-days so you can follow them over the course of weeks and months. Prior to clinic, you will have an academic half-day with the rest of the residents. This means one full day devoted to Family Medicine weekly, regardless of the service you are on.

Call… Abbotsford Style

• Apart from Obstetrics, there is no overnight call! We do call until 11 pm without a post-call day. The reason behind this is simple: learning and wellness. We have high-quality and high-volume days on rotation, and we feel that you learn more during the daytime than you do at 3am. And it is so nice to sleep in your own bed!
• We schedule our call shifts. Having control over our schedules means never having to miss another important life event. Aside from hospitalist call, residents are typically the only learner on a service, thus they have total flexibility to change their shifts to take advantage of learning opportunities; for example, you may choose to do call tonight instead of tomorrow if you want to help out with a pericardiocentesis planned for this evening.
• “Choose your own adventure” call in R2. Instead of doing our standard Hospitalist call (dealing with ward issues and admitting patients from the ER), you can opt to do ER shifts, Youth Clinic shifts, Obstetrics, Cardiology or really any other type of call that appeals to you. If you can set it up, you can do it! This is particularly useful if you’re planning on doing maternity or applying to a R3 program.
• Call is 1:4 during R1 and the first half of R2; however, there is no call requirement when you’re on elective unless that elective has call. Call decreases to 1:6 for the second half of R2.

Community

• Built in 2008, ARHCC is a 300+ bed hospital…and it is beautiful! It’s also your home for almost two whole years. You’ll be able to greet people by name as you walk in each morning. If you need to consult a specialist, most likely you will already know the staff on the other end of the line and they will know you. Having a learner along is the exception, not the rule, so staff are eager to teach…whether you’re working with them or not! If you pass by and there’s something interesting on the go, they’re excited to share the learning opportunity with you.
• We have THE best program staff hands down. From our program directors to administrators, everyone is incredibly friendly, responsive, receptive to feedback, and invested in making sure residents are thriving. We all hold leadership roles throughout residency and work as a team with program staff to constantly improve and make our program the best in Canada.
• As a smaller program, we quickly become fast friends. Our resident group is very supportive of each other, and we also love to have fun! Ski trips, weekend retreats to Washington, and visits to the local breweries/wineries are just a few of our past adventures.
• The Fraser Valley has wonderful outdoor opportunities. From hiking to skiing, you can be active year-round. Or you can go to the well-equipped, but very affordable, the gym at ARHCC to keep in shape! You can ski Mount Baker, hike Mount Cheam, and then drive down to the US to bike around the San Juan Islands.

Weaknesses

A frustrating part of CaRMS is hearing everyone play-up their program’s strengths while minimizing the downsides of the program. We love our program and feel that the list of weaknesses is short, but we think these things are better to know up-front.

• As mentioned above, the hospital will run fine without you. In order to maximize your experience here, you will need to take the initiative to get involved. People love having you around once you declare yourself, but no one will force you to do anything. If nurses don’t know you’re on call, they will just call the staff. If the staff doesn’t know you’re on call with them, they will do the consult themselves. The ideal residents for Abbotsford are willing to put themselves out there – there’s a treasure trove of learning to be had, but you have to go for it!
• There are limited opportunities to teach medical students. We do case presentations at half-days to teach each other, presentations for nurses during certain rotations, and we have an active journal club. However, we only have medical students coming in for a few rotations where you will have the opportunity to pass along your wisdom (Pediatrics, Psychiatry, and Internal Medicine).
• You’ll need a car – Abbotsford and Mission are not very public transportation-friendly.

If you have any questions about the program, we’d love to hear from you! Good luck and we look forward to meeting you on the CaRMS tour!

Dr. Michael Wollin & Dr. Maria Zhu