Rural Peace Liard

Over the last decade, the trend in medical education has been towards decentralized and more generalized teaching. The vision of the Rural Peace Liard Family Practice Residency (RPLFPR) is to offer high quality medical education in rural communities providing a broad spectrum of general and specialist medical care. The majority of this general and specialist care is provided by family practitioners, thus the RPLFPR provides the opportunity to learn “cradle to grave” care in a truly “full service general practice” environment.

The North East Health Services Delivery Area (NEHSDA) provides health care to a population of approximately 70,000 in the north east of British Columbia, with the two largest communities of Dawson Creek and Fort St John accounting for the bulk of the care. The NEHSDA provide per annum 91,000 ER visits, 900 deliveries, 35, 000 inpatient days, and 5000 surgeries. There are over 60 physicians working in the North East providing these services.

The residency program will be split primarily between the two major centres of Dawson Creek and Fort St John. The family practice residents will be based in one community for the majority of their time but will need to travel to the other community for some rotations so a vehicle is required.

Being the residents in a relatively new site brings special opportunity. Residents coming to the Peace Liard region will have unique access to clinical experience and teaching. However it is important to note that the site will be best suited to the highly self-motivated resident who is interested in directing his or her own teaching. You will be part of a process to introduce a formal academic program within a well-established clinical service community. If you are interested in a fantastic opportunity with a high focus on the academics of Family Medicine, community contribution, and balanced healthy living then the Rural Peace Liard site is worthy of your strong consideration.

Because of their locations, the communities of the Peace Liard offer a range of outdoor and cultural activities including hiking, cross-country skiing, snow-mobiling, horseback riding, hunting, and fishing. Many indoor sports are available. There are a number of arts groups in each community: choirs, bands, theatre companies, potter’s guild, as well as visiting performing artists.

Paul Mackey, MB.BS.,CCFP

Site Director

The Rural Peace Liard Program is meant to train family docs planning to do rural practice in the environment that they will ultimately work in; one where surgery is not necessarily separate from obstetrics and internal medicine is not necessarily separate from psychiatry. While we do have some “rotations” they are not traditional rotations as such – that is, we are not exclusive to one service. We get directly involved with our patients right from the outset, and begin to experience continuity as patients we follow in the clinic present to the ED and are admitted to hospital for various reasons. We work directly with our attending physicians, and have full run of the hospital, facilitating truly rural style family practice, where one is the ‘everything’ doctor, as it were.

In addition to our work with the family docs, we also learn from and work with the specialists available, including both onsite and travelling clinics. All of the physicians here, family and specialist alike, communicate with and support one another, leading to a tremendously unique medical community with true collegiality and respectfulness. Also, in many cases, the family physicians have special interests which they’ve been able to develop their skills in and work as the local specialists in that discipline. For example, we have GP Obstetricians, Surgeons, Anaesthetists, Cardiologists and Paediatricians. The medical community is fantastic, and in my opinion, makes our program amongst the best.

In terms of life outside of medicine, Fort St. John and Dawson Creek are bustling and busy communities with much to offer. There is a wealth of outdoor activities in both summer and winter including running trails, golf courses, and in Fort St. John our very own Charlie Lake for fishing and boating. There are active curling clubs and hockey/figure skating arenas, swimming pools and tremendous possibilities for cross country skiing. Downhill skiing is a few hours drive away at a great hill called Powder King or if one prefers we have easy access through Alberta to Jasper and Banff. Additionally there are several formal fitness facilities, martial arts classes and dance classes offered at various places.

Both communities have local community colleges if you or your partner are interested in further educational opportunities, and both have plenty of volunteer opportunities and paid employment opportunities. If you have children coming along, both communities have good schools including French immersion schools and in general good access to schools from any part of the community in which you choose to live.

The best kind of resident for these communities is going to be one who is a leader. We need people who are willing to help design the program, including providing feedback about what is going well and what could be done differently. As our program is in its infancy, you will find that the minds are wide open about how things should run, and there is tremendous willingness to make changes and ‘go with the flow’ as it were. You also need to be something of an opportunist in your learning; that is, when you are on your internal medicine ‘rotation’ if an interesting surgical case comes in, you need to be able to become the surgery resident who can then become the psychiatry resident and then the paediatrics resident for other interesting cases. It often involves keeping your ears to the ground as everyone gets used to calling you for learning experiences, but as time goes on you will get the calls. It’s also useful then to be willing to share and tell the other residents about the case, not necessarily so that they will become involved in management but so that they can observe more peripherally and learn as well.

If these things sound like the kind of program you want, the kind of community you like, and the kind of person you are, then I encourage you to apply and come talk to us in person at the interviews or even come and see our communities. And, if ever you decided to practice urban medicine, you’ll find that the training you received in the Rural Peace Liard program would serve you well in the city too. We look forward to meeting you, see you here!

Co-Chief Residents, Glen Armstrong & Saira Malik

gla1@ualberta.ca
m.saira@gmail.com