Jessica Palmer
For Jessica Palmer, it was never a question of whether to pursue a career in medicine; it was simply a matter of when.
“It was always something that I had been interested in — it had been my plan to finish my Bachelor of Science and then apply to medicine, but it didn’t quite work out that way,” she recalls.
Now, three children and one UBC medical degree later, Dr. Palmer is embarking on the next stage of her career: a two-year family medicine residency in her hometown of North Vancouver.
Dr. Palmer has joined seven other residents in becoming the first cohort of UBC’s newly-launched Coastal family medicine residency, based in North Vancouver. Over the course of their residency training, they will take on clinical placements in places like Squamish, Whistler, Pemberton and the Sunshine Coast’s Powell River.
“Each of the communities is different and has different needs and different interests in having a learner around,” says Dean Brown, Director of the new Coastal training site.
Doctors who have to “do everything”
Dr. Brown, a family physician on the North Shore for over 30 years, is particularly encouraged about the partnership UBC has developed with other communities, which, he says, will provide rich learning environments.
“All those other communities provide wonderful primary care experiences — doctors in the more rural and remote communities have to do everything. They may not necessarily have specialists around, so they become extremely capable doctors,” he says.
In addition to the unique training opportunities other Coastal sites will afford, Willa Henry, Director of UBC’s Family Practice Residency Program, says the communities often reap long-term benefits from such placements.
“They often get very engaged in the community and the hope is that they will actually stay and eventually become teachers in that community and serve that community,” Dr. Henry says.
UBC family practice resident, Dr. Mitra Motamedi is looking forward to the opportunity to embark on a clinical placement at a neighbouring Coastal site.
Another of the Coastal residents, Mitra Motamedi, says that after completing her family medicine training, she plans to stay on the West Coast and serve the community that needs her most.
“I am a person who likes to work for communities. I like to find a community that I can serve most and that I can help — that gives me the most job satisfaction,” says Dr. Motamedi, who completed her medical degree in Turkey and postgraduate training in Iran. Prior to moving to Canada in 2010, she was a general practitioner and infectious disease specialist for Iran’s Centre for Disease and Control Prevention and the World Health Organization.
Continued residency program expansion
The Coastal family medicine residency is not the only community-based program to open its doors this summer.
In the Interior, another family medicine residency in Kamloops accepted its first six residents. Meanwhile, Kelowna General Hospital has accepted two other residents as part of UBC’s newly-launched, five-year emergency medicine residency.
The expansion and distribution of postgraduate training programs is part of the UBC Faculty of Medicine’s goal of not only increasing the number of doctors in training, but placing them in communities where they are needed most.
This year marks the tenth anniversary of the UBC’s MD distributed program. During this time, UBC’s postgraduate training programs have also grown, with over 1,400 medical trainees now pursuing 68 different postgraduate programs at more than 100 sites in the province. This year, nearly half the residencies — a record number — are designated for family medicine, where the need is greatest.
Perfect timing
Dr. Palmer’s route to a residency in her hometown was perfectly timed, if a bit indirect.
“I still need to pinch myself that this really is happening. It was a dream come true that this site opened the year I was applying to residency programs,” she says.
After completing her undergraduate degree in microbiology, she pursued a Masters of Pathology and Laboratory Science at UBC and, soon after graduating, secured a position as a molecular diagnostic specialist. Soon after, she and her partner had their first son — an experience that would not only transform her life, but compel her to reconsider her chosen career.
“My son was born with complex congenital heart disease and he required a cardiac transplant at the age of seven weeks,” Dr. Palmer says. “That just changed my life completely and, at the time, our lives were turned completely upside down.”
She began volunteering with the Children’s Heart Network, a non-profit organization that provides support for B.C. families with children who have congenital or acquired heart disease. She soon transitioned from serving as a volunteer to working for the organization, first as a family liaison, and later as the provincial coordinator, responsible for managing the entire operation. As a result of those experiences, she realized she could no longer ignore her true passion – and a career change was set in motion.
“Everything that we had been through with our son completely gave us a new perspective,” Dr. Palmer says. “It made me really appreciate the importance of advocacy for patients with complex needs and it just became the obvious transition for me to apply to medical school and go for it.”
With only a few more years left before reaching her goal of becoming a family doctor, Palmer says she plans to continue advocating for patients and teaching patients to be advocates for themselves — a message she’s certainly instilled on her own son, now a teenager and volunteer with the Children’s Heart Network.
“Patient-centered care and family involvement is really important for me. I spent a lot of years advocating for my son, and also for the families involved with the Children’s Heart Network,” Dr. Palmer says.