Academic Program | Family Medicine | School of Medicine

Our academic program is robust and well-organized to prepare you both for clinical practice and the CCFP-EM certification examination. Each week, during the 4-block Emergency Medicine rotation, there is a protected full academic day which consists of Emergency Grand Rounds, Core Rounds, and Simulation Resuscitation Rounds. These rounds take place in conjunction with the FRCP residents in the Department of Emergency Medicine. In addition, each month we have a full-day CCFP-EM academic day protected for just our residents. These days consist of a horizontal trauma simulation program, horizontal airway simulation program, horizontal toxicology series, practice oral/written examinations, and interactive seminars. The monthly seminar sessions are taught by both tertiary centre and community faculty who present a diverse, organized series of topics relevant to the CCFP-EM year. In addition to our regular teaching days, we have a 2-day cadaver course focusing on airway, chest tubes and resuscitation thoracotomy, as well as a Research day, There's More to Life day (where faculty and residents can share non-medical areas of interest/expertise), and a 2-day CCFP-EM Winter Retreat (practice readiness, medical talks, program review and fun!).

Simulation-based teaching is fundamental to the CCFP-EM program. The Queen’s Simulation Lab is a state-of-the-art simulation facility and our faculty are some of the most experienced and skilled simulation educators in the country.

Weekly senior resuscitation rounds during Kingston EM blocks provide an ideal means for practicing advanced criticalcare skills in a safe and supportive environment. Our highly-developed simulation program will bring you through a trauma, airway and resuscitation curriculum, and provide opportunities for you to teach junior learners in the simulation lab.

In July and August we offer a "Summer Series" of eight full-day sessions which review core resuscitation and procedural skills. This culminates in a final OSCE-type mini-exam to review the principals of resuscitation. This summer “boot camp” series has proven to be very popular with our residents, and gives them foundational skills, as well as opportunity to connect and form friendships with both CCFP-EM and FRCP-EM residents early in the year.

We have faculty with expertise in Point-of-Care Ultrasound (POCUS) and all CCFP-EM residents graduate with core emergency medicine POCUS certification (aorta, free-fluid abdomen, first trimester pregnancy, subxiphoid cardiac, lung). All CCFP-EM residents will be given opportunity to do an advanced POCUS applications block, involving practice in gallbladder, DVT, advanced cardiac, pulmonary, IVC, renal and MSK applications. Core CPOCUS certification is available to all residents should they decide to challenge the exams.

An average of nine practice CCFP-EM oral examination sessions and three SAMPs-style CCFP-EM written examinations are provided yearly to help prepare residents for the certification examination. Residents are invited back after graduation for one last practice oral examination session just before challenging the CCFP-EM certification exam in September. Our pass rate for the CCFP-EM certification exam in the last 10 years exceeds 95%.

All residents are provided with full access to BMJ Best Practice, Dynamed PLUS, the Emergency Medicine Challenger on-line Medical Education Program, as well as HIPPO-EM.