Canadian medical education journal最新文献

Background: Medical schools play a critical role in shaping the physician workforce. Tracking the practice locations of medical graduates is essential for addressing healthcare disparities and workforce shortages in underserved regions. This study examines the geographic distribution of residency graduates from a Canadian francophone university, aligning their practice locations with the university's social accountability mandate.

Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted using data from the Canadian Post-M.D. Education Registry (CAPER) for 2,410 residency graduates (2000-2020) from 35 residency training programs. We analyzed practice locations at two-, five-, and 10-years post-graduation across medical specialties, sex, and geographic region, with a focus on Quebec's administrative health regions.

Results: There were 2,410 graduates from 35 residency training programs. Family medicine accounted for 57.8% of all graduates and 42.2% were from all other specialties. Most graduates (77.7%) practiced in the province of Quebec, with concentrations in the regions of the Eastern Townships (19.4%), Montérégie (14.6%), and Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean (7.6%).

Conclusion: This study demonstrates the important regional impact of the university's role in training family physicians and addressing healthcare needs in Quebec. The findings suggest the importance of tracking to inform evidence-based workforce planning and policy development. Medical schools can leverage such data to align training programs with societal health needs and enhance their contributions to regional healthcare systems.

The Rural Immersion program has been created to streamline residents to less-used remote sites, and to create resident-driven curricula. The program is suggested as a possible means to increase rural retention and benefit rural communities with longitudinal care.

Background: To determine if family medicine residents and recent graduates believe that the current residency program is sufficiently meeting their training needs for independent practice.

Methods: In 2024, a brief online survey using Likert scale and open-text questions evaluated McGill University residents' and graduates' level of agreement that family medicine residency training allows them to develop the necessary clinical knowledge and skills across nine domains. Medians and interquartile ranges were calculated to understand agreement and consensus of responses. Latent content analysis was conducted on qualitative responses.

Results: Across 10 sites, 31 of 158 senior residents responded and 59 of 452 residency graduates participated. With high levels of agreement and consensus, participants reported their learning needs were being met in most domains of care. However, graduate responses suggest that the program did not meet their learning needs for Indigenous health and procedural skills. Additionally, resident responses had low consensus around care of vulnerable and marginalized populations.

Conclusions: Learner needs may not be met in three domains of care within the family medicine residency program, a finding that aligns with the recent call for curricular reform in Canada. These results could help focus curriculum reform priorities to areas of greatest need.

The practice of social medicine, which requires skills in interprofessional collaboration and navigating community resources, is crucial for training students to provide holistic care. We developed a social needs-based virtual student-run clinic called Navigating Ottawa Resources To improve Health (NORTH) to assist newcomers and underserved families with navigating community resources in Ottawa, Ontario. We found that pre-clerkship medical students improved their knowledge and comfort-level with addressing social needs while clients found the service helpful for accessing community support. NORTH is an effective learning opportunity for pre-clerkship medical students to practice social medicine and serve vulnerable communities that can be organized and operated in other communities.

Since 2015, the "Buddy Program," a near-peer mentoring program operated by the McGill Student Society, has successfully welcomed 1,152 first-year medical students into medical school with the help of 848 dedicated second-year medical student mentors. This innovative, low-cost, time-efficient, automated and scalable model offers a reproducible framework and toolkit for similar institutions that wish to realize the benefits of near-peer mentoring. With unique features such as matching based on personal interests and continual improvements, such as the Meet-&-Greet event and associated orientation booklets, the program is a pioneering example of student-run near-peer mentorship.