Program Contacts

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Important Information

Prospective residents should refer to the Family Medicine Residency Selection website for ongoing updates, deadlines and detailed information.

FMProC: Important timelines

For the 2025 residency selection cycle ALL FM residency programs in Canada require applicants to sit FMProC for those applying in both rounds of CaRMS. 

 

FMProC test window for CaRMS first Iteration is from October 28 (8AM ET) to November 11, 2024 (10AM ET). 

Registration opens from September 11 (12 noon ET) and closes on November 07, 2024 (10AM ET). 

 

To register and find out more about the test please go to www.fmproc.com. All test related updates will be posted on the website. 

Requests to register or to sit the test outside of the posted deadlines will not be considered. 

 

Upon completion of FMProC, you must upload your FMProC result letter to CaRMS for your application to be considered complete.

 

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General Instructions

Program application language: English

Resident selection for the UBC Family Medicine program is a collaborative process between all of our sites. Logistics and administration of resident selection is managed by our central program office in Vancouver, located at the UBC Point Grey Campus.

As the UBC Family Medicine Program is distributed into 23 unique sites and locations, candidates should apply to each site they are interested in. 
Applicants must submit same application package to all sites to which they apply.  

Regardless of the number of sites applicants apply to and rank, only one interview will be conducted. 

A variety of virtual information sessions will be held to provide prospective residents with the opportunity to learn more about the programs and discuss the training experience with faculty and current residents. Please visit Program Events for upcoming events. 

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Supporting Documentation / Information

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Review Process

Applications submitted after file review has opened on November 29, 2024

Supporting documents (excluding letters of reference) that arrive after file review has opened  on  November 29, 2024

Letters of reference that arrive after the unmasking date on November 29, 2024

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Interviews

Dates:

• January 18, 2025
• January 19, 2025
• January 20, 2025
• January 21, 2025
• January 22, 2025
• January 23, 2025
• January 24, 2025
• January 25, 2025
• January 26, 2025
• January 27, 2025
• January 28, 2025

Selection Criteria

Applicants must submit an application to each site they are interested in and should assign the same set of documents to each site. Selection is based on file review and one set of MMI interviews. Each file is reviewed and given a score. This file review score determines whether a candidate is offered an interview. The file review score is then combined with the interview score and FMPROC score to create a total score for each applicant. The file review score will contribute to 20%, interview score will contribute to 75%, and FMProC will contribute to 5% of the overall global score. A recommended rank list based on the total score is submitted to each site for consideration. The sites retain discretion to adjust the recommended rank list based on local site selection committee input.

Program goals

1. To graduate residents who have developed the competencies needed to begin independent family practice in diverse community settings
2. To deliver an effective academic, clinical and scholarly educational program
3. To graduate residents who are inspired, resilient, and balanced
4. To graduate residents who demonstrate evidence-based and reflective practice
5. To provide working and learning environments that ensure residents, faculty and staff feel respected and supported

Selection process goals

1. Identify individuals with an aptitude for family medicine who are most likely to thrive in our diverse residency sites and in the unique context of British Columbia communities
2. Identify individuals with a demonstrated solid foundation of clinical skills and clinical approach which equips them for Postgraduate Education training.
3. Identify individuals who have consistent professional behavior; who interact appropriately with patients, colleagues and staff.
4. Identify mature, motivated individuals with a broad range of life experience which they can draw upon to adapt to the demands of residency training.

File review process

Evaluation criteria :

Elective criteria

Interview process

Interview evaluation criteria :

Information gathered outside of CaRMS application

We do not consider any information gathered outside of the CaRMS application and local interview processes.

Ranking process

The behavior(s) exhibited below during the interview process may prevent an applicant from being ranked by our program :
Unprofessional or inappropriate behavior   
Did not attend interview   
Interview performance was not competitive   
Other : • File does not support interest in family medicine
• Interview suggests lack of non-cognitive family medicine skills

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Program Highlights

Uniquely B.C:  UBC Family Medicine

Family Medicine training in BC presents you with many unique opportunities. We are a fully accredited distributed program with 23 training sites and multiple training communities. In an effort to meet the evolving needs of our society, each site provides a solid foundation in the knowledge and clinical skills of Family Medicine so that our graduates are prepared to practice in a variety of settings. While our program offers diversity of training, it is based on common goals, learning objectives, and assessment standards.

All residents are required to do a mandatory 2-month rural rotation in Family Medicine in their second year. Residents in the Coastal, or rural programs in the Okanagan or the North complete longer rural placements. Residents can also apply to participate in Enhanced Rural training for a total of 4-6 months in rural communities.

There is extensive academic and administrative support for the entire residency program. Our central program administrative team is based in Vancouver on UBC campus. At the site level, leadership teams are made up of a Site Director, Site Faculty, Lead Residents and administrators. Lead Program Faculty provide provincial education support in the areas of curriculum, assessment, faculty development, scholarship and behavioral medicine.

The Family Practice Postgraduate Education Committee has representation from all sites to ensure a connected, distributed program that fully meets accreditation standards. Residents are represented at all levels of governance.

A wide range of amazing recreational and cultural opportunities are at your doorstep, as well as a collegial community of residents and physicians with whom you can learn, grow, and play. We want your experience to be in BC to be a positive and enjoyable one.

Training Sites: Overview

Visit the UBC Family Medicine Postgraduate website for a detailed overview of each of the 23 sites and their surrounding communities.  Each site provides opportunities to experience Family Medicine in their unique context, offering special opportunities to gain experience and skills unique to the area where you are training.

The following is a list of our sites and their base community/hospital. Each site serves the surrounding community (see training sites for full details):

 

Greater Vancouver / Lower Mainland

• Abbotsford-Mission
• Coastal (North Vancouver, Lion’s Gate Hospital)
• Chilliwack
• Indigenous (Greater Vancouver and rural Indigenous communities)
• St. Paul's (Downtown Vancouver, Inner City)
• Surrey South Fraser (Surrey Memorial Hospital)
• Vancouver Fraser (New Westminster, Royal Columbian)

 

Interior Region

• Kootenay Boundary (Trail, Nelson, Rossland, Castlegar)
• Kelowna Rural (Kelowna R1 year; rural communities across BC in R2 year)
• Kelowna Regional
• North Okanagan (Vernon)
• Okanagan South (Penticton)
• Kamloops

 

Vancouver Island

• Indigenous (Victoria, Ladysmith and rural Indigenous communities including Pacheedaht, Penelakut, ‘Namgis)
• Quw'utsun (Duncan)
• Nanaimo 
• Strathcona (Comox, Campbell River and Courtenay)
• Victoria

 

Northern

• Fort St. John (Northeast)
• Northern Rural (Prince George R1 year; rural communities across BC in R2 year)
• Prince George
• Rural Immersion (Hazelton, Smithers, Vanderhoof, Mackenzie, Valemount/McBride, Chetwynd/Tumbler Ridge)
• Terrace (Rural Northwest)

 

IMG positions are offered at the following sites:

• Abbotsford-Mission
• Chilliwack
• Coastal
• Fort St. John
• Kamloops
• Kootenay Boundary
• Nanaimo
• North Okanagan
• Okanagan South
• Kelowna Rural
• Kelowna Regional
• Prince George
• Strathcona
• St. Paul’s
• Surrey South Fraser
• Vancouver Fraser
• Victoria

Resident Support

Resident resilience and wellness is our top priority. Important resources have been developed by our program to support our residents throughout the course of the training.

All UBC programs are allocated a fixed amount of funding per resident for Resident Activities.  This funding is used to provide educational support to residents during their 2 years of training. This includes funding for residents to attend program-wide courses and events. Additionally, residents may identify conferences and educational materials that would supplement their training experience. A discretionary, per resident funding will also be allocated to the sites for a similar purpose at the site level.

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Program Curriculum

This residency program is for 2 years.

Program length of training does not exceed the Royal College or College of Family Physicians of Canada standard.

Introduction

The Victoria Site has a comprehensive program that provides its graduates with the skills in acute care and community care to confidently provide services in a variety of patient care settings.

Our Site is based in Victoria and South Vancouver Island, British Columbia.  Victoria is a medium sized city with a population of approx. 400,000, situated on the southern tip of Vancouver Island, and is a short distance via road from world class surfing beaches, local farms, wineries, deep powder skiing, and year round golfing. Victoria also features scheduled car ferries, scheduled airlines operating fixed wing, float plane, helicopter, and luxury passenger-only ferry connections to the mainland.  This makes for easy access to weekend escapes in Vancouver, Seattle, Tofino, or the Gulf Islands. The outstanding natural beauty of the area encourages an active life style, as does the sub-Mediterranean climate. As Victoria is in the rain shadow of the Olympic Mountains, it gets about half of the annual rain fall of Vancouver.

All Family Practice Residents are based in community settings in the South Island region from Greater Victoria to Sidney, and from Sooke to Duncan, for their Family Medicine experiences.

Purpose/Objectives

The Mission of the Victoria Site is:

"The development of skilled primary care physicians who are effective providers of comprehensive community based health care, in the wide variety of settings of British Columbia, with a focus on under serviced populations."

"In pursuit of this mission, the training curriculum will embrace the principles of Family Medicine, and will direct Residents in training towards healthy lifestyles, within a background of professional flexibility and lifelong learning."

The Victoria site program is characterized by a Resident group that is closely knit and collegial.

Program Outcomes

Follow-up analysis of our residents upon graduating from the Family Practice program at the Victoria Site reveals a high level of preparedness in all areas of Family Medicine. Residents completing at the Victoria Site are active in many different practice styles and locations after graduation, and feel as at home in rural and semi-urban environments as they do in an urban setting.

PGY1 Overview

Because our mission is to graduate residents who have the ability to practice in rural and urban settings, both community family practice and hospital care factor equally in our first year.

PGY1 residents have a continuous, substantial longitudinal and immersive commitment to community family practice, where the resident is placed in a home clinic that has been specifically matched to their declared interests.

There is also an expectation of exposure to hospital care within patient-care oriented rotations.  This includes a requirement to provide overnight in-hospital call, which helps to develop the autonomy of the learner particularly in under-resourced situations.  Residents can expect to provide patient services on call on average 1:4 in Internal Medicine and 1:4 in Pediatrics.  These are often partnered with other learners – medical students, or other residents, including senior residents.

There is a total of 6 months of Family Practice community clinic exposure in the R1 year including a 1 month of Introduction to Family Medicine, 4 months of Family Practice, including Family Practice Obstetrics, and Women’s Health, as well as an additional 1 month of Concentrated Family Practice.  Both Concentrated and Intro to Family Practice have no call expectations, so the resident can be fully immersed in the community family practice experience.

The non-family medicine block experiences are comprised of 4 weeks of Pediatric CTU, 4 weeks of Internal Medicine CTU, 2 weeks of In Hospital Medicine (family medicine hospitalists), 2 weeks of Cardiac Medicine, and 4 weeks of Emergency Medicine.  We strive to include outpatient experiences within the hospital block of appropriate rotations if they are available in the community.

Academic Half Days each week and a full FP clinic day back every 2 weeks to the resident’s associated FP office provide a longitudinal community family medicine component throughout the non-family blocks of the first year.

Call Expectations                                                                                   

Resident physicians will provide patient care after hours and on weekends during low resource periods for hospital care which provide maximal experiential educational opportunities.

Minimum call requirements are as follows:

R1 Year: 

LDR: 8 24-hour shifts, 3 of which occur during two-week LDR rotation (72 hours) and 5 during FP rotation (120 hours)

House: 8 overnight/weekend shifts, 3 of which occur during two-week Hospitalist rotation and 5 during FP rotation

FP rotations: 126 hours (based on 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. weeknights and 3:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. weekends)

Hospitalist rotation: 72 hours (based on 24 hours)

CTU: 168 hours (based on 24 hour shifts)

Pediatrics: 168 hours (based on 24 our shifts)

Addictions Medicine: 6 hours (not overnight, one evening call during course of rotation)

Total = Baseline/approx. 732 hours (avg. 1 call per week)

 

R2 Year:

House: 7 shifts unless on extended rural then reduced to 5 shifts (98 hours based on 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. weeknights)

LDR: Recommended if planning obstetrical practice; # hours at Resident discretion

Palliative: 17 hours (based on Friday 5:00 p.m. to Saturday 10:00 p.m.)

Psychiatry: 14 hours (based on one evening shift from 5:00 to 11:00 p.m. and one weekend shift from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Total = Baseline/approx. 129 hours (avg. less than 1 shift per month; does not include any call requirements during Rural rotation)

Rotation	Duration	Location/Notes
Introduction to Family Medicine	4 weeks	Early family practice clinic exposure, extra academic sessions on family practice approach to certain conditions, exposure to FP hospital medicine with FP Hospitalists
Integrated Family Practice/Obstetrics/ Women’s Health	16 weeks	The equivalent of 8 weeks of preceptor attached Community Family Practice combined with some Family Practice acute hospital care on the hospitalist service spread out over 16 weeks.   For the Obstetrics and Women’s Health component, the encompassing Obstetrics and Gynecology, including Labor and Delivery shifts, Ante-partum care, Postpartum care, specialty Gynecology clinics, FP Pre-Natal clinics and FP oriented Women’s Health clinics spread out over 16 weeks.   LDR overnight in-hospital call (average 1 per month)
Labour & Delivery Shifts	2 weeks	In Hospital exposure to Labour & Delivery shifts and overnight in-hospital call (average 1:4)
In Hospital General Care	6 weeks	4 weeks Internal Medicine CTU – overnight in-hospital call (average 1:4) 2 weeks Hospitalist (Family Practice) and overnight in-hospital call (average 1:4)
Cardiac Care	2 weeks	Primarily In-Hospital Cardiac Medicine; may include some ambulatory care
Emergency	4 weeks	Based in the Cowichan District Hospital (Duncan) or Royal Jubilee and Victoria General Hospitals (Victoria).
Addictions Medicine	2 weeks	Includes 1 week of inpatient addictions consultations, and 1 week of outpatient addictions treatment and will include option for certifying in suboxone prescribing course.   Call expectations determined by rotation
Care of Children	4 weeks	In-Patient Pediatrics CTU at Victoria General Hospital, may include some ambulatory care as available in the community.   Overnight in-hospital call (Average 1:4)
Concentrated Family Practice	4 weeks	1 block of time in attached community FP preceptor’s office without any additional call responsibilities or other seminars besides AHD.
Electives	4 weeks	Electives may be split up into two 2-week blocks or one 4 week block.

PGY 2 Overview

The year is comprised of several traditional blocks along with a core of 7 ½ months Family Practice component. The 22 weeks of Victoria Site-oriented family practice provides a strong grounding, allowing residents to better engage with a roster of patients over time. 

Rotation	Duration	Location/Notes
Family practice (Rural Block)	8 or 16 weeks	8 weeks of family practice in a rural setting in communities across the province, OR 16 weeks in total with reduction Family Medicine urban component   Call expectations determined by rotation
Elective Block	8 weeks	8 weeks of blocked electives
BATS	2 week	Combination of Anaesthesia in Victoria and Duncan, Sexual Health, Wedge excisions, Lumps and Bumps
Palliative Care	4 weeks	4 weeks of Palliative Care in Hospice Victoria or Duncan.   Call expectations determined by rotation
Surgical Selectives	4 weeks	ICU or Trauma for 2 weeks and Surgical selective of 2 weeks OR 2 x 2 weeks of Surgical Selective   Call expectations determined by rotation
Family Medicine	14 weeks total	The equivalent of 14 weeks (reduced if doing Enhanced Rural) of Family Practice experience with attached urban preceptor(s)   Call expectations of one overnight in-hospital call on average every two weeks (Hospitalist Service)   Call expectations determined by Preceptor for Family Practice on call
Elective - Family Medicine Selective	4 weeks	4 weeks of family medicine selectives (opportunities may be community longitudinal exposure or community GP office with incorporated focused practice)
Psychiatry	2 weeks	2 weeks of Psychiatry block   Call expectations determined by rotation
MSK Medicine	2 weeks	2 weeks of ambulatory Orthopedics/ Sports/Physical/Rehab Medicine/ Rheumatology
Transition to Practice (TTP)	4 weeks	4 weeks of complete office immersion, penultimate or ultimate block of residency

4 weeks of vacation to be taken over the year, 2 weeks in the first half and two weeks in the second half of the year, and this is taken off of rotation(s) of the resident’s choosing so long as they complete at least 75% of expected days on any given rotation which is required for adequate assessment.

Academic Days and Research

Residents attend in person mandatory academic activities – a half day per week. This includes academic teaching combining clinical case discussions and core topics. Residents are also expected to do presentations. Throughout the program, we stress "Evidence-Based Medicine" in both academic and clinical areas.

In June of each year, residents will come together for a mandatory Site-specific Scholarship Day.

In the first year, residents will be expected to complete a quality improvement project. Throughout the two years, residents must complete a scholar project and present their work at Scholarship Day.

International Electives

Residents can do one month of interprovincial or international electives during the second year of their training.

Further Training

Third year training positions are available in the area of Emergency Medicine, Care of The Elderly, Anesthesia, Palliative Medicine, Sports and Exercise Medicine, Clinician Scholars program and a wide range of other category 2 Enhanced Skills programs.

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Training Sites

Training Sites

Our Residency program is based in the Capital Regional District which also hosts the UBC affiliated undergraduate University of Victoria / Island Medical Program. There are two large and very busy tertiary care hospitals, cultural amenities, an uncommonly physically active population, and a vulnerable population in the inner-city core.

This residency site also provides experiences in small and rural communities where a true appreciation of the delights, values, and stresses of a more rural lifestyle can be appreciated.

The Victoria Site is based in the Greater Victoria area and our Residents may also work in practices and community hospitals within the smaller surrounding communities of Sooke, Sidney, Saanich, Mill Bay, and Duncan. There are also opportunities to complete elective and selective rotations in other communities on Vancouver Island or other more distant rural locations within British Columbia, however, candidates should understand that core rotations will be completed at sites associated with the UBC Victoria Site and that the UBC program in general does not allow switching between the various associated training sites.

Our vibrant program gives Residents the confidence to practice in urban, semi-urban, and rural communities after graduation. The variety of experiences and strong training offered has also made it a solid basic program for those who wish to explore further training in the varied enhanced R3 opportunities that are now available, as well as to pursue the delivery of focused family practice services in various clinical settings.

Our program fosters collegiality, support, and teamwork amongst our Residents, and the friendships made during the time of Residency are strong and often endure well beyond the time spent in residency. Our venue is set in some of the most beautiful scenery the West Coast has to offer. The lifestyle in Victoria embraces a wide variety of outdoor opportunities, sports, and recreation which may be enjoyed in the mildest climate in Canada.

Resources

Based on Southern Vancouver Island, the Victoria site utilizes full service community family practices and the 950 acute care beds of the Vancouver Island Health Authority at Royal Jubilee and Victoria General Hospitals. Community Resources include outpatient programs, and many community practices within the greater Victoria area. Family Practice Residents and first year Royal College Residents, along with the Psychiatry, Emergency, Pediatrics, and Internal Medicine programs are the only full time postgraduate trainees. There are in excess of 3,000 deliveries, close to 200,000 emergency room visits, and 36,000 surgical procedures carried out each year. Residents have high speed internet access in their on-call areas, and in their preceptors' offices.

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Additional Information