"Expect the unexpected."

I had no idea how true that was when somebody tried to brief me about the CaRMS process.  We were expecting to match with our highly ranked and strong learners who have that "pioneer spirit" as we head into our first year as a site.  And we did.  Let me welcome our initial group who have matched here - we truly are ecstatic with our group so far!  Unfortunately, there's just not quite as many signed on as we had hoped - we have three unmatched QBOL spots at this time.

I could insert some cliches about spilled milk, the sun tomorrow, silver linings, and the like but I'll just say things are what they are and we'll make the best of it.  I do believe that things happen for a reason so we will make the best of the opportunities that present in the second round of CaRMS as we try to complete our first group of residents.

If you are an applicant who is heading into the second iteration of CaRMS for Family Medicine, please refer to the CaRMS website for the instructions and timeline for the second iteration.  I hope you make the most of your opportunity as well and good luck.

T - 6 days to Match Day!

Just a quick update today.

Currently, we are busy getting the details of our "toolbox month" sorted out and we are waiting with keen anticipation to find out who will be part of our first group of residents that will be joining us.  One thing that I've learned over the past month is that I am not too good at playing the waiting game...

There's quite a snow storm in the area tonight.  Be safe.  Spring is just around the corner now!

Happy Groundhog Day.

It's very hard to believe that it's already February.  I'm not sure what the groundhogs will be predicting about winter later on this morning although with the winter we've had... is there a way they can predict -6 "more" weeks of winter?

What I think we can predict after finishing our four days of CaRMS interviews is that we are going to have some great learners matched to our program for our inaugural year!  I know that all of us QBOL interviewers found these CaRMS interview days to be a very positive experience.  In particular, it was quite heartening to see the amount of genuine interest in our site.  We've been working hard to prepare the best learning experiences we can for our incoming QBOL FM residents and are really feeling energized now to push towards the finish line... or is that the start line ahead?

In addition, I'll share a link to our videotaped morning presentations in case you wanted to relive the drama of the information sessions.  Otherwise, feel free to contact me and we would be happy to send you some of our materials (e.g. PDFs of the slide presentation or a copy of our Colourful Curriculum Calendar), get you in touch with some of our community contacts, or answer any further questions you might have.

It was truly a pleasure to have the chance to meet with so many great candidates, to hear about the variety of paths you've taken to FM, and to learn about the many strengths that you already have to share with us - not just us at the QBOL site, but as future colleagues in FM.

CaRMS interviews at the halfway mark.

Just home from two days of interviewing candidates for our first cohort of QBOL residents and came away extremely impressed. There were many strong candidates with a definite interest in Family Medicine that would be a great fit with our site. Almost makes me wish we had more spots... Almost. "Eight is enough" for our first year.

I hope the people whom we have interviewed so far found the experience useful, fair, and not-too-intimidating. There certainly was a lot of information presented (even taking into account the technical difficulty I had the second morning's presentation - always check the plug!).

I also hope everybody involved with the interviews over the last 2 days had safe and smooth travels on their way home from Kingston; I noticed some black ice on the highway near Newtonville.

CaRMS Interviews start next week!

We are getting pretty excited as we prepare to go through the CaRMS interview process over the next two weeks.  This will obviously be the first time for our site and it takes us one big step closer to finding out who our first batch of residents will be!

As I am preparing a small presentation for the interview days, I thought this would be a good time to see if anybody had any thoughts or questions for us.

• If you are considering the QBOL site as an applicant, do you have any questions that we can address for you to help you make your decision?  
• If you currently live in Durham or are participating in QBOL, what do you see as the positives of our location and/or program?

Feel free to comment below or just e-mail me.

Evaluation of Residents

As site Evaluation Lead for QBOL I am very excited to be part of this program. We have a state of the art electronic portfolio, developed by Queens DFM, to track resident progress and identify learning needs. We are going to be able to provide an excellent and well rounded, and relevant (no longer spending time holding retractors, staying up all night managing acutely ill neonates in the NICU) program that will produce family physicians who are able to participate in the full spectrum of patient care. We have great tools to help us teach and evaluate our residents!

Here is a link that will introduce you to some teaching tools.

Teaching

It is amazing how far teaching knowledge in family medicine has come since I was in residency! After attending workshops on teaching procedural skills, motivational interviewing, narrative (and the importance of reflection in life and making change), and magic, I feel energized to get back to the office and practice! It was great to meet several energetic medical students who seemed excited about our new horizontal program and our "sorting hat". I look forward to the arrival of our first residents!