Site Director Message

Lead Resident Message

Welcome to Kamloops! Our site opened in 2014 and has been expanding and making positive changes ever since! We have a wonderful medical community that has enthusiastically embraced the FM residency program. Some of our graduated residents have stayed and now have taken on leadership roles in our program. Our site is looking for eight hard-working and independent individuals that enjoy life outside of medicine to join our amazing community.

BENEFITS OF THE KAMLOOPS PROGRAM:

Unique Program Features 

• Primarily block-based model with some longitudinal features.
• • During off-service rotations, four days per week are spent on rotation and one day is spent in alternating academic full days and return to family medicine clinic days
• Longitudinally, we follow long-term care patients and obstetric patients throughout our training.
  • For obstetric patients, we are involved in prenatal, intra-partum and postpartum care.
• Many primary preceptors have hospital privileges and care for their own inpatients, provide obstetric, long-term/geriatric, and/or palliative care.
• • We try to match residents with preceptors with similar areas of interest.
• We work with 2 or more family medicine preceptors to give us a broader scope of exposure.
• New resident lounge and 5 call rooms built in 2016!

Centered in Family Medicine

One of the great strengths of this program is that family medicine exposure is continuous over two years. This ensures the opportunity to apply concepts learned on specialty rotations back to your home practice.  We have full clinic days every other week to allow you to build your own cohort of patients to follow. In addition, many of the specialty rotations are focused on family medicine learning and tailor your learning experiences. For example, there is a weekly pediatric clinic that is run by the family medicine residents.

Little Competition for Learning Opportunities

There are 8 UBC 3^rd year medical students, 17 family medicine residents, and a few elective 4^th year medical students and visiting specialty residents throughout the year. You are often the only learner on rotation.  There are some exceptions, with Pediatrics and Gen Surg often having other learners. However, there is plenty of work to go around you aren’t fighting over learning exposure. You work directly with staff and are first in line for consults, procedures, deliveries, surgical assists, etc.

Emphasis on Your Learning

Our program is relatively new and there is very little dependency on resident servitude. The majority of rotations and preceptors are keen to facilitate your learning and build rotations around FM centered learning.  Preceptors respect and appreciate your learning goals and their expectations are scaled accordingly (meaning minimal scut).  Call is variable but often scheduled by yourself or with your preferences in mind.

Strong Academic Curriculum

Our curriculum and behavioural medicine faculty continuously work to improve our academic curriculum. Faculty provide lectures on the 105 key topics for our CCFP exam. We have behavioural medicine lectures on topics like end of life ethics, mindfulness for patients, and reflective practice. Our program is open to topic suggestions and incorporates them into our academic days.

We have an excellent SIM lab built with high fidelity models and dedicated staff who have been amazing for teaching at our regular SIM sessions. We also have ultrasound teaching regularly as part of our academic days.

Collegial Medical Community

The residency program has been very well received in Kamloops and they have welcomed us as part of the medical community. The enthusiasm amongst preceptors here is unparalleled. Consultants on other services in the hospital are happy to chat about interesting cases and involve you in procedures.

Opportunity to Leave Your Mark

Even though we are an established program, we are still working hard to improve. Each resident has the opportunity to improve the program. Our program director openly solicits feedback and has been diligently working to incorporate our feedback.  Major changes in the past have included adding opportunities for longitudinal long-term care/geriatrics, providing options for additional ER and hospitalist shifts, and adapting the definition of FM call to ensure we can see more of what we want to see.

Tertiary Care & Rural Exposure

Kamloops is a level 2 trauma center located at the junction between three major highways, several major ski hills, and a number of lakes/rivers. The emerg here is busy year round. Kamloops is a major referral center for the surrounding communities. There is also opportunity to work in the surrounding rural communities such as Chase and Merritt. High volume plus low number of learners means that your clinical exposure here will be top notch. Kamloops has quite a good volume of interesting pathology! As with the other UBC family medicine programs, residents also have the opportunity to pursue extended rural training and gain more experience in other communities.

Work-Life Balance & Life in Kamloops

Our program directors strongly encourage that we make time for the things we love outside of medicine. There are lots of opportunities to be involved activities outside of medicine. There is a thriving outdoor community: mountain biking trails in town, a local ski hill, hiking trails, and much more. Many of our current residents get season passes at Sun Peaks and can be found there on weekends through winter. There are tons of nearby lakes to explore and we will often go paddleboarding together. You may also find us playing sports in some of the local leagues (soccer, volleyball, ultimate frisbee) and adding to our trivia trophy collection. There are also 6 local breweries and a winery! Our Kamloops group is a great size with enough people to find others with similar interests but small enough that it still feels like family.

The people in Kamloops are incredibly welcoming. For a city of 90,000 people, there are lots opportunities in town. There are museums, a symphony, an art gallery, free outdoor concerts every night in July and August, and more. Kamloops is also very central making trips to Vancouver, the Okanagan, Revelstoke and many other areas easy to do over a weekend.

CHALLENGES OF THE KAMLOOPS PROGRAM:

Opportunity to Teach

There are 8 UBC 3^rd year medical students and we do get the occasional 4^th year elective student. Aside from that, there aren’t many junior learners. If you’re keen to teach, you’ll have to seek out those opportunities. If you aren’t, teaching expectations are low. In the past, residents have done presentations or workshops targeted to the medical students or hosted OSCE practices — it’s possible, just requires you to be more proactive.

We Don’t Have Every Service

Kamloops is a tertiary care center, but we don’t have thoracic surgery or cardiac surgery. If it’s important to you to have exposure to these services during your residency, you can use elective time. In addition some residents have found rotations such as obstetrics to not have enough volume in term of deliveries at times and therefore have chosen to pursue further experience in hospitals in the lower mainland. We also do not have a dedicated anesthesia rotation, and many residents choose to pursue this during electives.

IN SUMMARY

We’re confident that the Kamloops program will train you to be great family doctors who will be able to provide comprehensive care for your future patients.

Dr. Andrea Houze and Dr. Suhana Kamakari