Academic Half-day back in Home Program when on Off-service Rotations
Principle
The College of Family Physicians of Canada and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada require all accredited training programs to provide an “organized curriculum which assures that all major topics of the specialty are covered over the course of each Residents time in the Program”. The General Standards Applicable to all Residency Programs states, “The use of an academic half-day or equivalent is encouraged.” It is expected that the academic curriculum should be able to be covered while a Resident spends time on the clinical services of their home program.
Off-service rotations are scheduled to satisfied specific goals and objectives of training. Off-service rotations tend to be short in duration and it is anticipated that attending the Academic Half-day of the off-service rotation would satisfy some of those goals and objective. Returning to the home service academic half-day would result in more time away from the clinical experience of the trainee while on an off-service rotation. With Residents released from clinical duties post-call, the clinical experience on a short rotation is already limited.
Guidelines
- To maximize the educational opportunities while on off-service rotations, the trainee should attend the academic half-day educational session for that rotation.
- Programs will not be required to release Residents to return to their home program academic half-day educational sessions.
- Programs are encouraged to create specific educational sessions during their academic half-day which address the educational goals and objectives of the off-service residents.
- If a service can not provide appropriate educational sessions for the off-service residents, then the residents must be released to attend their home program academic half-day.
- Program Directors are free to negotiate for the release of their residents to attend their home academic half-day sessions on an individual basis with the specific off-service rotation coordinator.
- Residents should be released for special and unique educational opportunities which become available throughout the academic year in their home program. (Examples of this would include but not limited to; technical skills workshops, resident research days, departmental educational retreats. etc.)
Approved by the PGY1 Subcommittee of the Postgraduate Medical Education Committee
July 27, 2011