Two new programs bring innovative community-based MD training to Vernon and Trail
They’re here! MD students will learn medicine from patients and physicians in unique community-based settings in the UBC Faculty of Medicine Southern Medical Program’s (SMP) Integrated Community Clerkships (ICC) in Vernon and Trail.
Four third-year UBC medical students, two in each community, will spend the entire year training with local family physicians and specialists and providing care for patients.
“The Southern Medical Program is very fortunate to have the commitment of clinician teachers and dedicated onsite program leadership in both Trail and Vernon,” says Dr. Allan Jones, Regional Associate Dean, Interior. “Students will receive excellent training and support in such welcoming environments.”
In comparison to a Traditional Clerkship held in larger city centres, the ICC exposes students to an interdisciplinary team approach to patient care as they track patients from diagnosis to treatment to follow-up. Each ICC student is teamed with two local family physicians and spends time each week working with patients at their respective offices.
Under direction of their mentoring physicians, students monitor patients from the initial consultation through various treatments and settings including speciality and community referrals, hospital admissions, emergency department, operating room, in-patient care, and finish back at the family physician office for follow-up.
The ICC program provides opportunities for students to complete their training in more rural and underserved communities, where as studies suggest, they are more likely to return to practice upon the completion of their medical training.
The ICC sites in Vernon and Trail represent a partnership with the UBC Faculty of Medicine, Interior Health, Vernon Jubilee and Kootenay Boundary Regional Hospitals, and the medical professionals in these communities and surrounding areas.
By 2013, the SMP will have 32 students entering their third year of the MD Undergraduate Program with an anticipated 4 to 6 students participating in an ICC in Vernon or Trail.