Rural Skills | Family Medicine | School of Medicine

A primary mandate of the Department of Family Medicine at Queen's University is to prepare family physicians for practice in communities the size of Kingston or smaller.

We recognize that additional skills are sometimes required for practice in these settings. Depending on availability of positions, other special interest/focused practice experiences might be included in this category and not be directly related to practice in smaller communities. All of these programs are self-designed with input from the Program Director and other academic advisors.

Program Organization

Because each community differs and the skill set of the physicians in each community differs, the Rural Skills program is highly individualized to help meet the educational objectives of the resident and the needs of the community (or type of community) in which the physician will practice.

Most commonly, residents seek additional training in obstetrics, procedural skills, emergency medicine, hospitalist medicine, or some aspect of psychiatry.

The length of the overall program and the length of each rotation is generally negotiated between the program coordinator and the resident. The Rural Skill program can be a minimum of 3 blocks and a maximum of 6 blocks.

It should be emphasized that the Rural Skills program is not a mechanism by which to gain eligibility to write the examination of special competence in emergency medicine as a resident candidate. It is also not meant to serve as a form of remediation or to build basic competencies.

These self-designed programs are supervised by the Rural Skills Program Director, Dr. Christy Stephenson.