Community Stream

About Us

The Community Residency Program at the Department of Family Medicine offers selected residents the opportunity to spend their two years of family medicine training in a community medical practice. The practice sites range from the core of downtown Ottawa to rural settings about forty five minutes outside of the city.

Explore our map of Community Teaching Sites for locations and descriptions

If you choose the community practice stream, you will work at a designated community practice alongside our experienced preceptors for your core rotations (or block time). You will also be affiliated with one of our academic teaching units (Bruyère Family Medicine Centre, Primrose Family Medicine Centre, Civic Family Health Team or Riverside Family Health Team) for your formal teaching, where you will do the same rotations as your in-unit counterparts. For instance, those residents in a community practice associated with the Ottawa Hospital Civic site would rotate through the same services as the in-unit family medicine residents.

We pride ourselves on providing a training program in a community setting that graduates residents who are ready to “hit the ground running” and begin full time practice on their own.

Teaching & Learning Opportunities

In the community setting, there are a variety of practice types and styles, including: solo practices, group practices and Community Health Centres. In settings where there are multiple physicians, one physician will be paired with you as the primary preceptor at the site yet you may have the opportunity to work with other physicians. All of our primary preceptors in the community hold a faculty appointment with the Department of Family Medicine, University of Ottawa.

Some primary preceptors have one resident in their practice, others two. In practices where there are two residents, it’s a combination of first and second year residents. Each resident we assign to a community practice will stay at the practice throughout their two years of residency.

In a community practice, you have a one-on-one relationship with your preceptor and are able to observe a role model whose practice setting and responsibilities can be quite different from an academic unit-based practice. In addition, you learn the business side of running a community-based practice.

"x" Accepting residents in 2020 Explore our map of Community Teaching Sites for locations and descriptions

1580 Merivale Road (Ottawa) Dr. Erika Tanner	x Greenboro Family Medicine Centre (Ottawa) Dr. David Tobin	Smyth Medical Centre (Ottawa) Dr. Millaray Sanchez and Dr. Shabnam Hussain
x Active Care Medical Clinic (Ottawa) Dr. Carl Bertrand and Dr. Heather Daverne	x Manotick Medical Centre (Manotick) Dr. Jeff Hovey and Dr. Shirin Lal	Somerset West Community Health Centre (Ottawa) Dr. Kay Lee and Dr. Sarah Rice
x Albion Road (Ottawa) Dr. Christiane Kuntz	x Perth Family Medicine Clinic (Perth) RURAL Dr. Robin Kennie	St Joseph Family Medicine Clinic (Orléans) Dr. Ed Seale
Carling Broadview Medical Building (Ottawa) Dr. Gabriela Lewin	Renfrew Medical Group (Renfrew) RURAL Dr. Steve Radke	x The Nation River Health Clinic (Winchester) RURAL Dr. Bart Steele
x Central Ottawa Family Health Organization (Ottawa) Dr. Jason Leclair	Riverside Court Medical Clinic (Ottawa) Dr. Lisa Moore	West Carleton Medical Centre (Carp) Dr. Michelle Lawler
x Centretown Community Health Centre (Ottawa) Dr. Carol Geller and Dr. Alison Eyre	x Riverside South Medical Centre (Ottawa) Dr. Haig Ashikian	x West End Family Care (Kanata) Dr. Andrew Kujavsky
x Greenbank Road (Nepean) Dr. Hanif Charania	Rosemount Clinic (Ottawa) Dr. Claudia Hubbes
x Greenbelt Family Health Team (Barrhaven) Dr. Roozbeh Matin and Dr. Caitlin Schwartz	Sandy Hill Community Health Centre (Ottawa) Dr. Susanne McKim

Patient Population

In the community, the patient mix is unique to the practice location. Because you may be the only learner in the practice, you are often exposed to the greatest variety of patients and conditions that the practice encounters.

Rotation Outline

YEAR 1	YEAR 2
Family Medicine/Obstetrics (5 blocks)	Family Medicine + Obstetrics (4 blocks)
Emergency	Emergency
Geriatrics	Psychiatry
Pediatric Emergency	Internal Medicine CTU
Pediatric Wards	Family Medicine Rural
Family Medicine Hospital Service	Family Medicine Hospital Service
Internal Medicine CTU	Community Pediatrics
Family Medicine Rural	Family Medicine/Palliative
Elective	Elective (2 blocks)
* Community residents are affiliated with one of the following anglophone urban stream Academic Teaching Sites: Civic/Riverside or Bruyère/Primrose

Note: 1 block = 4 weeks, 13 blocks per year

Sample Family Medicine Monthly Rotation

WEEK		SUN	MON	TUES	WED	THUR	FRI	SAT
Week 1	AM	OFF	FM Clinic	OB call	Post OB	Teaching	Teaching	OFF
	PM					FM Clinic	FM Clinic
Week 2	AM	OFF	FM Clinic	FM Clinic	FM Clinic	Teaching	Teaching	After hours clinic
	PM					FM Clinic	FM Clinic	OFF
Week 3	AM	OB Call	Post Call	FM Clinic	FM Clinic	Teaching	Academic Day	OFF
	PM					FM Clinic
Week 4	AM	OFF	FM Clinic	FM Clinic	FM Clinic	Teaching	Teaching	OFF
	PM					FM Clinic	FM Clinic