CCFP: How-to Apply

The year is split into four-week blocks of:
 

Adult Emergency Medicine:

5 blocks are spent in the emergency department at The Ottawa Hospital (and Montfort for the bilingual resident).

1 block is a combined Ultrasound/EM block that gives you all the skills to be competent in basic POCUS indications. A further elective block is available for advanced ultrasound skills.

Longitudinal Pediatric Emergency Medicine:

During 4 of your 5 adult emergency medicine rotations at The Ottawa Hospital (and Montfort for the bilingual resident), you will be assigned shifts in the emergency department at The Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) to give you comprehensive exposure to pediatric emergencies.

Community Emergency Medicine:

1 block in a community emergency medicine setting where you will be expected to work in an emergency medicine and office family practice setting.

Critical Care (ICU):

You will spend 1 block in a surgical ICU AND 1 block in a medical ICU at The Ottawa Hospital/Montfort (for the bilingual resident).

Cardiac Care (CCU):

1 block will be done in a CCU (University of Ottawa Heart Institute or General Hospital).

Anaesthesia:

1 block (2 weeks adult at The Ottawa Hospital/ Montfort (for the bilingual resident), 2 weeks of pediatrics at CHEO).

Orthopaedics:

1 block of orthopaedic surgery (recommended to do in Collingwood).

Electives:

2 blocks of elective time are available based on your individual needs. Popular electives include Trauma, Toxicology, Ophthalmology, Pediatrics

During clinical shifts, residents are supervised by staff emergency physicians. This allows for one on one time with staff MD’s who are national and world leaders in research, ultrasound, simulation and medical education. During clinical shifts, CCFP-EM residents are scheduled as Senior Residents. Therefore, you will be first in line to do any procedures and lead resuscitations that come in.

Our academic curriculum comprises of a weekly academic full-day session, arranged in a series of medical specialty blocks within emergency medicine. The first 10 weeks are dedicated to resuscitation and trauma skills. Academic sessions are run by staff emergency medicine physicians and specialists. Rounds are mostly held separate from the Royal College EM Program allowing for a more focused curriculum to meet CCFP-EM objectives.

Emergency Medicine Grand Rounds precedes academic day weekly. Grand Rounds are of a national conference level and given by faculty and senior residents. Every year the Department of Emergency Medicine invite a number of internationally renowned guest speakers to present Grand Rounds and give academic day. Past guests included Dr. Amal Mattu, Dr. Sara Grey, Dr. Dr. Scott Weingart and Dr. Jeff Klein. There are weekly resident case rounds throughout the year, combined with the FRCP residents.

From January through June, residents will have practice orals in preparation for the CCFP-EM core competency exam. Written practice exams are held throughout the year to help residents prepare for their CCFP-EM written core competency exam.

All residents are trained in Ultrasound and receive certification by the end of the academic year. In our Level I ultrasound curriculum, during one of your early Adult EM Blocks, 2 weeks of protected time with supervised scanning shifts are given to residents to develop their US skills with an US trained supervisor. This allows you protected time to gain competence in all primary indications of POCUS. New as of 2016, we have a Level II US Elective Block which gives residents a chance to learn advanced ultrasound skills in an EM Block later in the year.

A new state of the art Simulation Center opened in Oct 2010. At the start of every year, a 2 day SIM Boot camp is organized for residents where they learn key procedural skills.SIM sessions take place throughout the year to focus on more practical / hands on parts of the curriculum. Sessions include workshops on pigtail catheter insertion, nasopharyngeal scope use, trauma scenarios, and chest tube insertion. SIM sessions give an opportunity to receive direct observation and feedback on leadership and code running skills. Residents will also have the opportunity to have SIM sessions at CHEO (The Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario). A hand lab led by a plastic surgeon and a thoracotomy lab led by a trauma surgeon are held annually.

The Department of Emergency Medicine holds its journal club every month at a restaurant or over a catered meal.

All residents are required to undertake a small scholarly project (academic/research project/chart audit), which they present at the Department of Emergency Medicine Research Day, as well as the Department of Family Medicine Research Day. This is a very structured project with deadlines throughout the year to help guide residents. Each resident will have a faculty methodologist and a faculty supervisor to help. Past residents have found this an extremely rewarding experience.

There are five PGY-3 positions in Ottawa for the Family Medicine/ Emergency Medicine Program. Any resident in Family Medicine is invited to apply via CaRMS, with the application process starting in the summer of the PGY2 year. Further details are posted at www.CaRMS.ca  Other candidates with outside funding are also welcome to apply.

The University of Ottawa program in Family Medicine/ Emergency Medicine is based primarily at the Ottawa Hospital, which is a multi-campus hospital providing primary, secondary and tertiary care to the people of Ottawa and the surrounding region. Visit www.ottawa.com or www.ottawa.ca for more information on living in Ottawa.

The one-year program in Emergency Medicine at the University of Ottawa was the first in Canada, and has been offered since 1979. It received full approval at its last accreditation survey in 2016.

The program is located in Ottawa, our nation's capital, and as such enjoys many of its benefits. Ottawa is a safe, medium sized city of 1,000,000 inhabitants metropolitan. Besides the many museums and cultural attractions the city has to offer, Ottawa is an outdoor lover's paradise. The city has extensive bike paths,jogging trails, the longest skating rink in the world (the Rideau Canal), world class rapids for kayaking, nearby downhill skiing as well as hundreds of kilometers of cross-country trails. Ottawa is also one of the most reasonably priced cities to live in North America.

• Life in Ottawa is ideal for young couples and families, and a haven for the outdoor enthusiast with easy access to Gatineau Park and amazing trails for skiing and biking within the city. R. Jamieson CCFP-EM Graduate
• There's so much to do, ranging from outdoor things like camping, hiking, cycling and skating on the world’s longest canal to all the regular indoor things such as visiting the museums, going to the National Art Center for plays, musicals etc. It has the multiculturalism that a big city has to offer, without having to experience metropolitan clutter, crime and congestion. N. Wang CCFP-EM Graduate