The times (on call) are a'changing.

Just a quick update today prompted by an article I read in the Medical Post (here's the link - hope it works but I had to log in to get to this article) describing how the CMA passed a motion to limit resident call to 16 hours or less.

The idea of decreasing from 24 hour call seems to be gaining traction across Canada but I know it's a "hot button" topic where effects can range from the obvious (like changes to call schedules) to the more unexpected (e.g. will fewer hours on call in training lead to a change in the duration of training?).

I would not say I have strong feelings either way but am very interested in how this develops as it will affect our curriculum.  This article also mentions that some of the Quebec programs that were early adopters of this type of policy are not that happy with the results so far.

Please leave a comment if you have any insight to share about this.

Camp Oconto - September 2012

Well, last week marked my first visit to Camp Oconto and it was a wonderful experience.  It really was the first chance for the current crop of Queen's FM residents from all sites and all years to mingle as a group.  This was facilitated by the 75% cooperative weather (not counting the program director-powered "hurricane" the first day), the beautiful backdrop of Eagle Lake, engaging speakers, and many enjoyable team-building / communication-enhancing / medical knowledge-testing activities.  Thanks again to the organizing committee - your planning efforts were certainly noticed and appreciated!

I'll attach a few photos here to give a taste of the activities but the photos really don't do justice to the experience.  Or the memories.  It was truly humbling to see how many future family physicians we are helping to prepare.

I can't wait for next year's wilderness medicine experience in Temagami!

Receiving instructions while itching for "lake-time".

A great "classroom" to learn about work-life balance.

High strung teamwork?

An impressive group.

Back to nature.

Resident Perspective

Hello Everyone!
    I am periodically going to be updating the blog as one of the brave pioneer residents of this exciting program. We are currently well in to the swing of things and have all been learning lots along the way. This week we're heading to Camp Oconto for our annual family medicine resident retreat to bond with our fellow Queen's residents. I will give you a more indepth post upon our return along with some pictures of our crew enjoying the great outdoors...Stay tuned!

Also, don't hesitate to reply if there's anything you're particularly curious about!

Cheers
- Stephanie

We're in the local news!

The good news:  Here's a little article that came out of the ALARM course we hosted at the LHEARN earlier this week.  Let's keep up the good work everyone!

DurhamRegion Article: Oshawa medical students get hands-on training on emergency births

The bad news:  According to the article, our residents may have been demoted back to being medical students...

Friday the 13th was a "Nightmares FM" day.

Shhh.

Here are some photos from QBOL's inaugural Nightmares FM course which took place last Thursday and Friday at the LHEARN Centre.  The LHEARN Centre is a recently opened facility housed at Lakeridge Health Oshawa which provides numerous teaching and meeting facilities including two brand new simulation labs.

(And yes, through some fortuitous and entirely unintentional planning, the second day of our Nightmares FM course did actually fall on Friday the 13th.)





This Nightmares FM course welcomed our batch of first year QBOL residents along with additional Queen's residents from other sites in a safe, non-judgemental learning environment.  The goal of this simulation course is to better prepare our future family physicians to respond confidently and competently to the needs of acutely ill patients.

Day 1 briefing session.

Ready to go!

We plan to take advantage of these state of the art facilities with refresher Nightmares FM courses and additional simulation courses.

QBOLers getting ready to roll.

Monitoring the scenario.

I also want to give special thanks to Dr. Randy Wax for assisting with the set up and mannequin support and to Drs. Aubrey Kassirer and Ed Osborne who were the primary instructors.  Your time, effort, preparation, and enthusiasm really helped to set the tone for our first simulation course and made for a very successful learning day!

A Midsummer Night's Dream

The Nightmares course will hopefully continue with great fun on Friday the 13th, and for lighter fare, the Bowmanville Visual Arts Centre is hosting the Bard's play outside (in if raining) on Sunday only. $15 at 7:30. Should be fun!

And we've launched!

It's been tremendously exciting the last couple days as we've welcomed our first batch of "live" residents to the QBOL site!  The weather over the past couple days has been a bit too damp and then a lot too hot / humid but it hasn't taken away from the true joy of seeing everybody's positive energy and enthusiasm so far.

Continuing the aerospace theme, we'll continue to try to give our residents a "boost" to start things off with our additional planned orientation activities throughout July before everyone settles in to their longitudinal learning experiences woven together with a Family Medicine thread in August.

Just a reminder to our preceptors to feel free to go to the separate preceptor blog (Behind the QBOL - link in the left hand bar on this screen) just to review or comment on things as we progress and a reminder to everybody to contact me with any questions or concerns.

Onwards and upwards!