As a child, Jess Paul spent many hours at BC Children’s Hospital, watching intently from the bedside as doctors and nurses cared for her brother. Amid the busy hospital wards and the unfortunate circumstances of family illness, the Abbotsford native began to imagine her future.
L-R: Emergency Medicine residents Margaret Zhang and Jess Paul, in the corridors of Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster. Photo credit: Daniel Presnell
That future was realized in July, when she set out through the labyrinthine halls of Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster, on her way to see her first patient.
She was embarking on the next stage of her training as a resident in emergency medicine. But Dr. Paul was also helping to usher in a new stage of UBC’s distributed education program.
Several new community-based residency programs opened their doors this year. Besides the two emergency medicine residents in Fraser Health (with two more added each year, for a total of 10 by 2018), residents in emergency medicine and internal medicine began their training in Victoria, which will lead to a total of 18 by 2018. The expansion will continue next year, with two emergency medicine residencies beginning in Kelowna.
Though residents in emergency medicine and internal medicine have been doing rotations in hospitals across the province, the launch of these new programs mark the first time their entire training will be spent in a community outside of Vancouver.
Such postgraduate programs are central to the Faculty of Medicine’s drive to increase the number of doctors in training, and to place those trainees in communities where doctors are needed most.
“We feel it is important for our postgraduate residents to be exposed to the unique aspects of various communities across B.C.,” says Roger Wong, Associate Dean of Postgraduate Medical Education. “We also feel that when doctors are trained in those communities there is an increased likelihood that they will choose to remain in those communities thereafter.”
“There’s a great need for more emergency physicians, but we don’t have enough room at Vancouver General Hospital to give them all of the learning experiences they need,” says Caroline Tyson, the director of Fraser Health’s Emergency Medicine residency program. “Distributing that learning across sites is a way of dealing with the physical space constraints. Using the template that has been developed and proven effective at the core sites ensures that wewill maintain those high standards in other locations. And, at the same time, patients in Fraser Health have access to more doctors.”
Internal medicine Andrew Kwasnica at Royal Jubilee Hospital in Victoria. Photo: Lyle Stafford, Victoria Times Colonist
The residency programs also allow newly-minted M.D.’s to pursue their post-graduate training closer to their roots.
Andrew Kwasnica, who grew up in Victoria and graduated from the Island Medical Program in June, is remaining in the capital for the next stage of his training, as an internal medicine resident at Royal Jubilee Hospital.
Dr. Kwasnica was drawn to working in a smaller hospital, thinking it will be easier to foster meaningful connections with mentors or fellow trainees. But he also can’t imagine leaving Victoria.
“I have family here, and my wife’s family is from here,” he says. “We have a child on the way, so it’s important for us to put down our roots here. That’s why I wanted to stay here so badly. I’d be happy to never have to leave again.”
Back at Royal Columbian in New Westminster, Dr. Paul is similarly gratified to be working so close to her hometown. “When I go back to Abbotsford, and family and friends are talking about different things… they can picture where I am and where I’m working,” she says. “That’s kind of special, to have that connection.”