Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre - Barrie

Postgraduate Residency Program Details

Quick Facts

  • Number of residents: 9 PGY1 & 9 PGY2
  • Curriculum type: horizontal (residents maintain a family practice three half days per week throughout the two-year program)
  • PGY1 elective blocks: 2 (residents maintain their family practice commitment during elective time)
  • PGY2 elective blocks: 3 (residents maintain their family practice commitment during elective time)
  • Program includes 3 blocks of Emergency Medicine and 1 block of Hospitalist Medicine
  • Obstetrics: 2 blocks in 1st year. Residents also follow and deliver their own family medicine patients throughout their residency, under the supervision of a family medicine physician who practices Obstetrics
  • Program is focused on general family medicine
  • VIDEO: 2022 Open House—Site Overview

Program + Site Highlights

  • Manage your own roster of patients within the Family Medicine Teaching Unit (FMTU) thus encouraging continuity of care, including care to residents' own patients admitted to hospital.
  • Learn through a competency based curriculum and call schedule structured within a horizontal teaching model.
  • Deliver comprehensive care to a broad patient population in an office, hospital and community settings (hospice, home visits and long term care).
  • Core PGY2 rotations in ICU and Public Health
  • Limited number of specialty residents and undergraduates, therefore, family medicine residents enjoy the benefits of functioning as primary house staff and the hands-on learning opportunities this offers
  • Upon completion of the RVH program, residents will also be comfortable practicing Emergency, Hospitalist, Palliative and low-risk Obstetrics medicine.
  • Live in an energetic, vibrant city with four season recreational amenities, and within 45 minutes of Toronto and Muskoka.

Hospital, Community, Teaching Unit and Program

You and your roster of up to 200 patients are part of the Family Medicine Teaching Unit (FMTU), which is a member of the Barrie Community Family Health Team (BCFHT). The BCFHT is one of the largest in the province and offers a multi-disciplinary team approach to patient care. You work within this team and some of the teaching is done by allied health team members. Residents (as a team) are on call for your roster of patients should they be admitted to the hospital for inpatient care.

The combination of teaching unit, hospital rotations and other community placements offers an excellent mix of inpatient and outpatient experiences to maximize your training.

Due to the limited number of specialty residents and undergraduates’ onsite, our family medicine residents enjoy the benefits of functioning as primary house staff and the hands-on learning opportunities this offers. Instruction is provided by teachers with comprehensive care experience in family medicine training. Highly skilled and enthusiastic sub-specialty instructors, working directly with you, will provide a broad, comprehensive and rewarding experience. These learning interactions create mentor-student relationships that foster confidence and competency in patient and practice management. Learning is enhanced by call requirements with Specialty faculty. Call on most rotations ends at 11:00 pm, with the exception of 24-hour call while on Obstetrics rotation.

RVH has 3 core clerkship rotations of 5 weeks each, with U of T family medicine clerks in the FMTU. You participate with staff physicians and allied health team members with clerk teaching, as well as academic sessions coordinated between Barrie’s medical staff, other U of T teaching sites and U of T core days.

Curriculum

In addition to continuous Family Medicine, the RVH experience will include Internal Medicine, Paediatrics, Obstetrics, Women’s Health, Surgery, Emergency Medicine, Mental Health, Palliative/Oncology, Public Health, MSK, Geriatrics, and Hospitalist Medicine. You experience many of Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre’s medical and surgical sub-specialties offering a wide array of clinical expertise from highly skilled and knowledgeable physicians.

Family Medicine

In this horizontal model, you spend three half days each week in the FMTU managing and maintaining your own practice over the two-year residency. The FMTU is part of the Barrie Community Family Health Team offering a team, multi-disciplinary approach to patient care and learning. Family Medicine enrichment opportunities in the areas of office procedures, dermatology, community and public health, accessing resources in the community will be offered.

Internal Medicine

You have ample learning opportunities in medicine; sub-specialty clinics, one-on-one medicine consults, plus inpatient management.

Emergency Medicine

You experience working 10–12 shifts per block in one of the province’s busiest emergency departments with CCFP (EM) teachers and Royal College emergency medicine specialists.

Obstetrics/Women’s Health

You have a 24-hour call, in a busy birthing unit and deliver an average of 6 births per shift, as well as consulting on any ER or hospital patients. You also participate in prenatal and gynecological clinics in the community. Procedural skills such as IUD and endometrial biopsy can be developed through office as well as colposcopy clinics.

Pediatrics

Residents have ample opportunity to work with emergency consultant on call, pediatric in patient and work in neonatology clinics. Additional opportunities exist in community paediatric clinics.

Mental Health

You have the opportunity to participate in inpatient and outpatient psychiatric care for both adult and youth patient populations. The rotation also includes scheduled time to visit and learn about community resources that can be used in their general practice.

Surgery

During the surgery rotation, you work with general surgeons of RVH in the operating rooms, ambulatory care clinics and endoscopy suites. One of these weeks will be dedicated to the Acute Care Surgical Service when the resident and a primary preceptor will handle all emergency room consults, as well as hospital consults. This will incorporate the majority of call responsibilities. There is also the opportunity to work in the skin biopsy clinics in the FMTU procedure room with one of the general surgeons or dermatologist, and a procedures clinic in a community office setting.

Musculoskeletal

On MSK rotation, you spend half days rotating through various clinics and hospital settings including: orthopedic surgery (Fracture Clinic and operating room), sports medicine, physical medicine and rehabilitation, hand clinic, physiotherapy and chiropractic.

Hospitalist Medicine

You will be paired with a Hospitalist preceptor and will round on patients from your preceptor’s roster.

After you round and chart on your patients, you will then review with your preceptor. The expectation is for you to order and interpret investigations, and have an overall plan for each patient, with input provided by your preceptor as needed.  Duties will include family meetings, meeting with the inter-disciplinary team and admitting and discharging patients.

ICU

During this rotation you will be exposed to a broad range of critical care issues and have the opportunity to improve your skills as a physician caring for critically ill patients.  You will learn approaches to multiple system dysfunction, approaches to airway support, fluid management etc.  You will also have critical conversations with patients and families

We have an intensivist-led, multidisciplinary care team providing comprehensive care to patients with unstable physiologic status and/or organ failure. The ICU team includes an Intensivist, ICU nurses; respiratory therapists; pharmacists; physical, occupational, and speech therapists; nutritional support team members; and social workers among others.

Public Health

The RVH program offers a unique opportunity in second year for you to complete a rotation in public health. You work directly with staff of the local public health unit to provide an understanding of how public health works with the rest of the health care system, including primary care.

Palliative Care/Oncology

The Barrie site provides experience in both palliative care and oncology. This gives our Residents a much broader perspective of the cancer journey and will better prepare them for primary care practice.  You will spend 6 weeks in Palliative Care and 2 weeks in Oncology.

During Palliative weeks, residents prioritize participating in new consults for palliative care, and managing palliative patients’ needs such as family meetings. You will round on palliative inpatients before attending scheduled palliative intake clinics, supportive care clinic and palliative home visits. Residents will be scheduled to work the Suspicion of Cancer Diagnostic Assessment Program (SOC DAP).

During Oncology weeks, the new patient Oncology clinics have been an excellent environment for the Residents to learn about oncology and how their primary care practice intersects with the oncology world. 

Care of the Elderly

The Care of the Elderly rotation at RVH engages you in caring for seniors with complex medical needs while learning about the patient’s life story and its impact on their health care needs. The rotation is held at various sites and includes: primary care geriatrics, long-term care, hospital based geriatric clinics, geriatric outreach services and the local inpatient psychogeriatric unit. Our faculty from the areas of primary care, care of the elderly focused practice, geriatrician and geriatric psychiatrists welcome the residents to this rotation and eagerly share their passion and wisdom of caring for seniors. The rotation is complemented by skilled allied health professionals including nurse practitioners, physiotherapists and specialized geriatric pharmacist.

Electives

Elective opportunities are available throughout first and second year of the program. The expectation is for you to maintain your family practice responsibilities in the Family Medicine Teaching Unit during the elective.

Sample Two-Year Rotation Schedule

1st Year :

Rotation

Number of Blocks

Family Medicine

Horizontal

Internal Medicine

2 Blocks

Obstetrics/Women’s health

2 Blocks

Emergency Medicine

2 Blocks

Paediatrics

2 Blocks

Mental Health

1 Block

Musculoskeletal

1 Block

Surgery

1 Block

Elective

2 Blocks

Total: 

13

2nd Year:

Rotation

Number of Blocks

Family Medicine

Horizontal

Teaching Practice

2 Blocks

Geriatrics

2 Blocks

Palliative/Oncology

2 Blocks

Intensive Care Medicine

1 Block

Hospitalist Medicine

1 Block

Emergency Medicine

1 Block

Public Health

1 Block

Elective

3 Blocks

Total: 

13

 

Contacts

Name

E-mail

Phone Number

Dr. Christine Stewart
Site Director

stewartc@rvh.on.ca

705-728-9090x23010

Carolyn Brooks
Program Administrator

 brooksc@rvh.on.ca

705-728-9090x23010

Dr. Wun Ting (Imelda) Suen 
Dr. Karyssa Hamann
Chief Residents

isuen@student.ubc.ca 
karyssa.hamann@medportal.ca