Program Contacts

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Important Information

All candidates must meet the Ontario Criteria of Eligibility found here. 

COVID-19 vaccination

Please be aware that most, if not all, hospitals in Ontario have mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policies in place that require, in the absence of a valid medical or human rights exemption, proof of vaccination. Acceptable vaccination must be in accordance with Health Canada. You may be required to provide an attestation that you meet this requirement as part of the CaRMS application process and any actual documentation will be collected by the appropriate institution if matched. These guidelines could change at any time in accordance with future direction from the Ministry of Health or the Universities based on information from Public Health.

MCCQE (Medical Council of Canada qualifying examination) Part 1 results: 

Trainees will be required to disclose their MCCQE Part 1 examination results if taken, upon entry into any of the University of Ottawa's training programs. Please note that the MCCQE Part 1 is not a requirement to begin residency. The purpose of this disclosure is to allow for resources to be provided to the few residents who would benefit from extra support early in their residency in an effort to maximize their success.

Failure to meet or provide proof of any of the stated requirements may result in an applicant’s file not being reviewed or removed from the Rank Order List.

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General Instructions

Program application language: English

Our preferred method of communicating with all applicants is via email.

Only required documents should be submitted. Submission of additional documents may lower the candidate’s assessment score.

Failure to meet or provide proof of any of the stated requirements may result in an applicant’s file not being reviewed or removed from the Rank Order List.

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Supporting Documentation / Information

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Review Process

Applications submitted after file review has opened on March 17, 2026

Supporting documents (excluding letters of reference) that arrive after file review has opened  on  March 17, 2026

Letters of reference that arrive after the unmasking date on March 17, 2026

At least one letter of reference must be from a physician practicing in public health.

Letters of reference specific to the practice of PHPM are preferred.

Selection Criteria

1. Personal Attributes

The following attributes will be considered when ranking candidates:

• Academic competence (intellectual capacity, critical thinking skills, problem solving ability, and academic achievement). Applicants with a University average below B+ will not be considered.
• Communication and interpersonal skills
• Professionalism
• Leadership traits and capacity for self-examination
• Self-directed and independent learning
• Orientation to justice and equity, and to inter-disciplinary practice

2. Evidence of Interest in PHPM:

Candidates must demonstrate a genuine interest in PHPM, which will be assessed through the review of the documentation and during the interview.  Knowledge of the Canadian public health system,  whether gained through volunteer or work experience, or through public health electives during medical school, is important because students who understand the public health work environment are more likely to be successful in their training. 

Candidates' applications should provide evidence of excellent written and verbal communication skills. 

The ability to review, synthesize, and summarize complex and potentially contradictory information may be assessed with a written question conducted before or shortly after the interview. A decision about this criterion will depend upon the number of applicants.

Although bilingualism is not necessary, a working knowledge of French is an asset to learning and opens options for placements.

The practice of PHPM requires an inquiring mind and strong commitment to lifelong learning; experience and interest in Public Health research are assets for a career in PHPM. Therefore, applications are screened for evidence of this experience and interest.

Program goals

The University of Ottawa PHPM program strives to prepare learners to be leaders within the Public Health field. Residents graduate with the knowledge and confidence to pursue their career goals and step into public health physician roles at the local, provincial or federal level.

Our program will:

1. Prepare PHPM residents for the Public Health workplace by enabling them to acquire specialty specific competencies;
2. Lay the groundwork for a successful career in PHPM;
3. Support the Royal College's requirements for PHPM specialty training and the personal learning goals of our residents.

• The School of Epidemiology and Public Health, within which the PHPM training program resides, offers both a Master of Science Epidemiology and a Master of Public Health. The MPH offers multiple stream options such as: Global Health, Public Health Practice, and Public Health Policy as well as language training.
• The uOttawa PHPM training program is uniquely situated to offer core and elective training within the federal government, including the Public Health Agency of Canada, Indigenous Services Canada - First Nations and Inuit Health Branch (national and regional levels) and the Department of National Defence.

Selection process goals

The goal of our selection process is to identify candidates who will thrive in our program and in their career as PHPM specialists. Our program is strengthened by the initiatives and insights from the fantastic residents that we have selected year over year. We are looking for bright, self-reflective, self-motivated leaders who are passionate about health equity and improving the health of the population.

Candidates must demonstrate the following:

• Knowledge of public health practice in Canada; motivation to be a PHPM specialist
• Candidates must have had some public health practice experience in Canada before applying in order to have insight in how the competencies of a PHPM specialist differs from other medical specialties
• A demonstrated ability of self-assessment and drive is required because self-study is needed to successfully complete PHPM specialty training
• Self-awareness and ability to reflect;
• Resilience (ability to grow and bounce back in face of adversity, where appropriate)
• Self-directed learner
• Ability to work collaboratively in teams
• Ability to recognize other's needs and abilities, to motivate others
• Critical thinking in conditions of uncertainty
• Ability to identify issues and analyze problems critically
• Ability to assess arguments and draw conclusions with open-mindedness and curiosity
• Ability to make decisions when both information and impact are uncertain
• Ability to distinguish between patient-centred approach and population health approach
• Professionalism
• Understanding of Public Health ethics and population health values
• Recognition of the role of medical officers of health, having legislated authority
• Impact of Public Health decisions is at the level of a population, therefore has consequences to the public as a whole vs. to individuals

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   

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Program Highlights

The Public Health and Preventive Medicine (PHPM) residency program at the University of Ottawa (uOttawa) offers the opportunity for residents to receive comprehensive PHPM specialty training while living and working in the beautiful city of Ottawa. We offer a mix of local, provincial, and federal public health training opportunities that are unique to our region: Ottawa Public Health, Centre Intégré de santé et de services sociaux de l'Outaouais, Public Health Ontario, Department of National Defence, Indigenous Services Canada - First Nations and Inuit Health Branch, the Public Health Agency of Canada, and more.

Many recreational and cultural opportunities are available in Ottawa and surrounding areas, and residents are encouraged to take advantage of what the community has to offer in their pursuit of a healthy work-life balance.

Our educational program is carefully designed to provide residents with wonderful learning opportunities. We offer training in both official languages, in rural as well as urban settings. Our aim is to prepare residents to independently practice PHPM at the local, provincial, and federal levels. After having completed training in the foundations of PHPM, residents will gradually assume increasing levels of responsibility, culminating in opportunities to act as a specialist consultant, at the level of an Associate Medical Officer of Health, or both.

Training experiences include academic courses and seminars, experience-based learning (rotations and field trips), resident co-directed collaborative learning (e.g. academic half-day), teaching undergraduate medical students and other health professionals, and self-directed learning that may include online training modules, directed reading and research/scholarly projects. The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (Royal College) establishes the required and recommended training experiences for all PHPM residency programs in Canada. Residents in the Family Medicine stream also need to meet the training requirements of the College of Family Physicians of Canada.  

Our PHPM residency program is committed to tailoring training to residents' learning needs. Formative assessments are used to support reflective practice and help residents address their learning needs. Through PULSE 360-Degree Surveys, all uOttawa residents obtain feedback about their leadership competencies and emotional intelligence from their supervisors, public health staff, peers, and junior learners.

Our program values self-reflection and personal growth. uOttawa provides residents with opportunities to learn through courses, conferences, and workshops. Residents receive funding to attend the annual National PHPM Review Course hosted by Queen’s University and the University of British Columbia. Residents are each allocated a fund to attend conferences, special training events, online modules, and to acquire educational resources.

Residents attend special academic sessions such as media training with professional media relations staff at the Eastern Ontario Health Unit, emergency preparedness and response simulations, and field trips to places like water treatment plants, and the provincial public health laboratory. Our program is flexible and responsive to residents' learning needs, allowing residents to participate in learning opportunities as they arise such the Canadian Field Epidemiology Program’s “Epi in Action” course. The program takes pride in co-leadership with residents and its continuous quality improvement. The Program Director and Administrator meet with the Lead Resident and elected Resident Representative at least monthly.

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Program Curriculum

This residency program is for 5 years.

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

The PHPM residency training is expected to take 5 years (60 months).

The PHPM specialty transitioned to Competence by Design (CBD) in July 2025.  We will continue to review, adapt, and improve the training experiences of residents under these new Royal College PHPM training standards.

Family Medicine Stream

The first two years of the PHPM Residency are integrated with the Family Medicine Program of the University of Ottawa. Family Medicine Stream residents are expected to complete the requirements for Certification in Family Medicine and meet the Royal College's Competence by Design training requirements for PHPM Transition to Discipline, Foundations , Core, and Transition to Practice (See: https://www.royalcollege.ca/en/standards-and-accreditation/information-by-discipline?specialty=royal-college%3Aibd%2Fspecialty%2Fpublic-health-and-preventive-medicine&subspecialty=&special-program=&afc-diploma=).

Transition to Discipline includes a training experience in a local public health unit and structured orientation sessions with the Program Director, Program Administrator, PHPM residents. Family Medicine rotations must cover the required clinical training experiences in Foundations. Residents have opportunities to develop competencies in providing health care services to a wide spectrum of patients and pursue particular interests through electives. While in Family Medicine training, residents are expected to attend PHPM Academic Half Day once per month.  

The third year of the program is dedicated to graduate level academic coursework, covering the basic sciences underpinning public health practice.  This fulfills the training requirements in Foundations. Courses in epidemiology, biostatistics, and other public health sciences provide the theoretical and conceptual training that the resident requires to work in PHPM.  Placements before and after the formal academic training are designed to reinforce the relevance of the scientific training to the practice of a PHPM specialist.  Residents are encouraged to complete a Master's degree, if they do not already have one; individual arrangements are made to ensure that the program supports them in this goal through integration with PHPM core rotations.

PHPM Core and Transition to Practice training (three blocks of 3rd year, the 4th and 5th years) occurs in public health settings, with 8 blocks of elective.

Mandatory Rotations: Years 3-5 of the Family Medicine Stream

Fields
	Number of Blocks	Description
Academic Training	10	Focus on Epidemiological and Biostatistical methodologies important to Public Health Practice.
Surveillance/ Epidemiology	3	Develop expertise in assessing the health needs of a defined population, the development and/or evaluation of a disease or injury surveillance system, and/or applied epidemiologic research relevant to public health.
Health Promotion/ Disease Prevention	3	Work as part of a multidisciplinary team on health promotion, chronic disease and injury prevention strategies building on preventive medicine knowledge and skills developed in family medicine training.
Communicable Disease/ Health Protection	3 blocks junior & 3 blocks senior	Focus on communicable disease control activities such as case/contact management and outbreak response. Jr. rotation is done at a local public health unit.
Environmental & Occupational Health	3	Act as a consultant on environmental and occupational health issues and focused study/learning of the breadth of environmental health in public health practice.
Senior Management and Leadership (includes public health policy and planning)	6	An extended rotation intended to be in the 5th and final year of training as ”transition to practice”. Residents are to consolidate their learning and assume leadership/management roles at the level of an Associate Medical Officer of Health. Family medicine residents also use this time to develop competencies in public health policy and planning.

In all training sites, residents work with PHPM specialists, medical officers of health and associate medical officers of health, and other accredited public health professionals.  The goal of these rotations is to acquire competencies in population health assessment, public health surveillance, health protection, health promotion, disease and injury prevention, and emergency preparedness and response as applied in different populations and contexts. As per the Royal College’s requirements, PHPM competencies cover medical expert, communicator, collaborator, leader, health advocate, scholar, and professional.

Eight blocks of training are elective.  Most residents schedule their electives at the end of their training or to enable them to complete their PHPM research project.

General Stream

Please refer to the program description specific to the general stream (see below) for details and apply to this stream separately, should it be available. In the event that the general stream is not one of the options, CMG candidates invited for an interview may inform the Program Administrator of their interest to pursue General Stream immediately following their match result.

Residents are expected to meet the Royal College's Competence by Design training requirements for PHPM (See: https://www.royalcollege.ca/en/standards-and-accreditation/information-by-discipline?specialty=royal-college%3Aibd%2Fspecialty%2Fpublic-health-and-preventive-medicine&subspecialty=&special-program=&afc-diploma=).

Transition to Discipline includes a training experience in a local public health unit and structured orientation sessions with the Program Director, Program Administrator, PHPM residents. The first year of the PHPM Residency is structured to meet the training requirements of Foundations. There are opportunities for residents to pursue particular interests through electives. Residents are expected to attend PHPM Academic Half Day.  

The second year of the program is dedicated to graduate level academic coursework, covering the basic sciences underpinning public health practice. This fulfills the training requirements in Foundations. Courses in epidemiology, biostatistics, and other public health sciences provide the theoretical and conceptual training that the resident requires to work in PHPM.  Residents are encouraged to complete a Master's degree, if they do not already have one; individual arrangements are made to ensure that the program supports them in this goal through integration with PHPM core rotations. 

PHPM Core and Transition to Practice training (three blocks of 2^nd year, the 3rd, 4th and 5th years) occurs in public health settings, with 16 blocks of elective. 

Mandatory Rotations: Years 3-5 of the General Stream

Fields
	Number of Blocks	Description
Academic Training	10	Courses relevant to PHPM e.g. epidemiology and biostatistics, research methods (qualitative & quantitative), public health system/policy, program evaluation and management/leadership
Surveillance/ Epidemiology	4	Develop expertise in assessing the health needs of a defined population, participate in the development and/or evaluation of a disease or injury surveillance system and/or applied epidemiologic research relevant to public health.
Communicable Disease/ Health Protection	3 blocks junior & 3 blocks senior	Focus on infectious disease prevention and control activities such as case/contact management and outbreak response. Jr. and senior rotations are done at different sites to offer discrete experiences.
Health Promotion/ Disease Prevention	3	Building on preventive medicine knowledge and skills developed in basic clinical training, work in a multidisciplinary team in a chronic and disease prevention program that develops and implements multi-sectoral health promotions strategies.
Environmental & Occupational Health	3	Act as a consultant on environmental and occupational health issues and focused study/learning of the breadth of environmental health in public health practice.
Public Health Policy and Planning	4	The resident learns to apply skills to the different stages of the policy cycle: agenda setting, policy formulation, decision-making, policy implementation and policy evaluation.
Senior Management and Leadership	6	An extended rotation intended to be in the 5th and final year of training as “transition to practice”.  Residents are to consolidate their learning and assume leadership/management roles at the level of an Associate Medical Officer of Health.

In all training sites, residents work with PHPM specialists, medical officers of health and associate medical officers of health, and other accredited public health professionals.  The goal of these rotations is to acquire competencies in population health assessment, public health surveillance, health protection, health promotion, disease and injury prevention, and emergency preparedness and response as applied in different populations and contexts. As per the Royal College’s requirements, these PHPM competencies cover medical expert, communicator, collaborator, leader, health advocate, scholar, and professional.

Sixteen blocks of training are elective. Most residents choose to schedule their electives at the end of their training or to enable them to complete their PHPM research project.

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Training Sites

Training sites for the PHPM Residency program offer a wide range of opportunities in varied settings.  Family medicine training takes place at a local community health centre or academic family health team with specialty rotation at one of the Ottawa Hospital campuses (see program description for uOttawa Family Medicine training program).

Academic training typically takes place within Master’s programs offered by the School of Epidemiology and Public Health, located at the Alta Vista Campus of the University of Ottawa. The school offers both a Master of Science (Epidemiology) and a Master of Public Health. Residents can also pursue academic training at other universities nationally or internationally if approved by the program

PHPM rotations are provided through the federal government (the Public Health Agency of Canada, the Department of National Defence, Indigenous Services Canada), Provincial government (Public Health Ontario) & local departments of health (Ottawa Public Health, Centre intégré de santé et de services sociaux de l'Outaouais, South East Health Unit, and Eastern Ontario Health Unit).  Elective sites include all of the above, other rural health units, and special interest specific sites such as Environment Canada or Centre for Addictions and Mental Health. The uOttawa PHPM program supports residents in achieving their personal career goals and as such, other sites will be considered on a resident-by-resident basis, subject to the approval of the Residency Program Committee (RPC). Residents may choose to do elective rotations at sites in other provinces and territories. Out of country rotations are possible, provided these are self-funded and approved by the RPC. Consultation with the Program Director will be necessary before submission of applications to the RPC.

Please note that residents working in federal government sites must undergo security checks at the "secret" level. 

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Additional Information

Placement of successful candidates:

Applicants will be accepted into the PHPM residency program according to the norms of CaRMS.  As soon as the match results are announced, we will contact successful candidates to assign residents to the clinical rotations and teaching sites.  The PHPM residency program reserves the right to determine placement according to the capacity of individual training sites.

Transportation to training sites

Residents are responsible for making their own travel arrangements to training sites. Because some of the training sites are rural health units, residents are recommended to have a valid driver’s license in Ontario and have access to an automobile.

Resources

All residents receive full access to the University of Ottawa library holdings.  This includes electronic search engines, electronic indexes, and the electronic medical/health journals to which the university subscribes.

Residents have access to the Ottawa Hospital Medical Library and services. 

Residents have access to wellness supports including counselling through the Faculty of Medicine’s Faculty Affairs Office.

Residents have access to dedicated office space within the School of Epidemiology and Public Health.

Residents have a personal Conference/Educational Resources Fund. 

Master’s Degrees

As per Royal College's training requirements, PHPM residents must complete a minimum of two semesters of academic course work at the graduate level or equivalent.  Although completion of a Master's degree is not required, the program strongly supports this. The specifics of training will be planned with the Academic Advisor in consultation with the Program Director. If the resident has completed a Masters-level or higher degree prior to entering PHPM specialty training, their academic transcript and competencies will be assessed and a modified training plan determined with the resident's input. 

Maintenance of clinical competence after completing Family Medicine

Residents who are successful in their Family Medicine exams may apply for an independent license in the province of Ontario. Residents remain employees of the University of Ottawa, which is their first responsibility. When in possession of an independent license, residents may practice (and bill) as Family Medicine physicians on their own time i.e. when not working on rotation or on call.

The Program Director retains the authority to require that every resident maintains the standards of the training program, which may include requiring that an under-performing resident ceases independent clinical practice.  To date, this has not occurred within our program.

Residents may take the equivalent of ½ day per week to practice clinical medicine as part of the program in an appropriate supervised family medicine setting. All the conditions for an elective rotation must be satisfied, including appropriate supervision, development of objectives of training, assessment and appropriate permissions from the program director, Residency Program Committtee and the supervisor for the substantive rotation within which the clinical rotation is nested.

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FAQ

Please refer to the information included in the "Additional Information" section.