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Rural Stream

The McMaster Rural Stream program is run collaboratively with the McMaster Department of Family Medicine, McMaster Community and Rural Education Program (MacCare) and the Rural Ontario Medical Program (ROMP). The program is designed to prepare residents for rural practice by providing a combination of core and elective postgraduate training to meet the individual needs of each resident with a recognition of varying patterns of practice in different rural family practice settings. Residency training is structured around core educational objectives with emphasis placed firmly on organized self-learning, with appropriate faculty assistance for guidance and supervision. Sites within the program are of varying size and local resources. This provides residents with the ability to choose a site and develop appropriate skills for the type of community for which they wish to provide care in the future.

Applicants are encouraged to consider the importance of obstetrical and emergency care provision in rural settings as they plan their rural residency and future careers. Inpatient care is a daily part of a rural medicine life and this will be reflected in your residency training. The Rural Stream Program will do everything possible to ensure excellent training for residents committed to comprehensive care provision.

Rural Stream training at McMaster provides you with:

  • A choice of six different communities in which you live and learn during your two years of family medicine
  • Excellent specialty rotations in rural/regional hospitals
  • Complete academic program delivered, for most sites, by videoconference
  • Enhanced emergency room skills-development
  • Opportunity to train in remote area in PGY2 year
  • Experienced rural family physician teachers who are skilled at in-patient care while providing obstetrical, emergency and/or anaesthesia care to their communities.
  • Curriculum options available to increase time spent in your community and reduce commuting/travel
  • The training and mentorship to build skills and the clinical courage necessary to pursue a successful career in rural medicine

PGY1:

  • 20 weeks Rural Family Medicine (broad scope exposure in-, out-patient and community rural family medicine)
  • Eight weeks each of Internal Medicine/Hospitalist, Obstetrics/Gynecology, Pediatrics in-patient and out-patient, and Emergency Medicine

PGY2:

  • 20 weeks of Rural Family Medicine (same practice as PGY1 year improves continuity and building independence across settings)
  • Eight weeks each of Internal Medicine/Surgery, Remote/Rural rotation
  • Four weeks Care of the Elderly,
  • 12 weeks Family Medicine Electives

Note:

  • It is a program requirement that residents live in the community for their Family Medicine blocks throughout residency
  • All rural applicants are required to submit a rural addendum as part of their CaRMS application. Addendums are scored separately. It will have an adverse effect on your overall rural application score if the addendum is not included in your application

Learn more about our individual rural sites:

Contacts

Dr. Wade Mitchell
Site Director

Shauna Ferguson
Education Associate
sferguso@mcmaster.ca