IMG Rural Fraser

The IMG Residency Programs at UBC are unique in Canada (and in the world) in that they are restricted to residency training in family medicine for doctors who trained in countries other than Canada or the U.S. Currently, the positions are open only to IMGs who have been assessed in the BC IMG assessment program. The first year of this program is strategically located at St. Paul's Hospital in downtown Vancouver where clinical assessments for entry to residency programs have been conducted for the past 14 years. The second year will be mostly delivered at a Rural Centre of training and be very much more Family Practice based, with some rotations in the secondary and tertiary care setting. Many of the IMG Fraser Site faculty are shared with the St Paul's Hospital faculty who have unrivalled expertise in the evaluation and teaching of IMGs. The residency program for 3 IMGs in family medicine will begin at this new site in July 2012 and has many similarities with the St. Paul's residency site in that the residents from both programs work together on many rotations and share common purpose and outlook. However, it is also recognized that the IMG resident may have a very different background, undergraduate experience and post graduate training and our residency site has been devised to recognize those characteristics. Faculty has been chosen for their previous exposure to and interest in training IMGs. In the early months of the residency, particular attention will be paid to the individual needs of each resident and many of the academic sessions are devoted to ensuring that the residents become thoroughly immersed in the Canadian medical system. We recognize the maturity of our residents and the rich diversity of experience they bring to Canada. We encourage them to speak of the medical experience in their country of origin and think that our Canadian trained residents can learn from them about the differing medical systems in the world. This enriches the training for all our residents. The program is organized on a traditional block exposure to the basic specialty areas in the first year along with 2 months of family medicine. For one month, the resident will work alongside a Canadian trained colleague on the Family Practice Teaching Ward and share the patient care responsibilities. Not all of the rotations will be at St. Paul's Hospital and other hospitals in the lower mainland such as Mount St Joseph, Children’s and Women’s and Surrey Memorial will be utilized. In the second year, there will be ample elective time for the resident to pursue areas of particular interest in preparation for practice. In their second year of training the resident will spend the majority of the year in a rural setting with a training very much centred in rural family practice. This will be good preparation for future practice as the IMGs will have a return of service contract to fulfill and it is anticipated that this will, in most instances, be served in areas outside the big metropolitan areas. We consider this program to be the next step in the pioneer approach already in place at UBC in regards to the education and integration of IMGs in Canada. It is anticipated that the outcomes of this residency program will be of great interest to other jurisdictions both in Canada and abroad.

Dr. Taj Baidwan
Site Director
Interational Medical Graduates (IMG) Site

TBA