Curriculum Overview

The MD curriculum portion of the Queen’s Lakeridge Health MD Family Medicine Program occurs in the first four years of this program. Years 1 and 2 are the pre-clinical years, and then in Year 3 students begin their clinical clerkship, completed by April of Year 4, which will be designed to facilitate their transition to a family medicine residency program. This program is designed to prepare students to be highly skilled family physicians prepared to care for patients of all ages in a range of settings including the community and the hospital. Successful completion of this curriculum will allow students to satisfy the requirements for a Queen’s MD and be well prepared to enter a residency in family medicine. They will also be prepared to write the Medical Council of Canada Part 1 exam.

This is an in-person curriculum with some virtual and asynchronous components.

Fall term

COURSE	DURATION
Transition to Medicine	4 weeks
ICP1: Adult 1	8 weeks
ICP2: Pregnancy & Newborns	4 weeks
PF: Critical Appraisal, Research and Learning	All term
SF:Population Health	All term
Clinical & Communication Skills I***	Year-long course
PF: Introduction to Physician Roles	Year-long course

Winter term

COURSE	DURATION
Health Determinant	All term
ICP3: Children and Adolescents	4 weeks
ICP4: Adult 2	4 weeks
ICP5: Complexity	4 weeks
ICP6: Aging & End of Life	3 weeks
ICP7: Community Placement	4 weeks**
Clinical & Communication Skills I ***	Year-long course
Introduction to Physician Roles****	Year-long course

*ICP = Integrated Clinical Presentations course

**Students will spend 4 weeks in a clinical placement in a community

***Includes procedural skills

****Winter term includes weekly clinical observership and “Community Week”

Students will learn in small-group tutorials with expert family physician tutors, with a mix of large-group interactive sessions. Learning will be anchored around intentionally created clinical cases, students will work through these rich cases in their learning teams, supported by their tutors. They will have access to asynchronous resources, including virtual and in-person educational offerings by Queen’s faculty members from many departments, and engagement from other members of the health care team, patients, families, caregivers, community members, and other subject-matter experts.

Students will experience three community placements in year 1. Each student will participate in longitudinal half-day placements with local family physicians throughout the academic year. They will attend a “Community Week” in January where they will be placed in a smaller community with family physicians. Finally, they will have a 4-week culminating community placement in a smaller community at the end of the academic year. These placements are part of the curriculum and will be used as opportunities to consolidate and apply what has been learned in class in clinical settings.

Assessment of student learning will come from a mix of direct observation by tutors, written assessments, examinations, practical assessments, and other assessment strategies.

A sample schedule (subject to change) is included below.

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Morning	Small group	Large group	Asynchronous learning	Small Group	Asynchronous learning
Afternoon	Large group	Asynchronous learning*	Clinical Skills (Bowmanville)	Asynchronous learning	Large group

*Asynchronous learning periods will also be used for students to complete their weekly half-day clinical placements with family physicians.

Years Two to Four (subject to change)

Fall term

COURSE	DURATION
ACP*: Blood, Infections, & Immunity	3 weeks
ACP: Fluids & Electrolytes	3 weeks
ACP: Circulation and Respiration	6 weeks
ACP: Digestion, Metabolism & Elimination	4 weeks
Critical Enquiry	Year-long course
Clinical & Communication Skills II**	Year-long course
PF: Introduction to Physician Roles	Year-long course

Winter term

COURSE	DURATION
ACP*: Reproductive health	4 weeks
ACP: Mental, neurological, musculoskeletal health	6 weeks
ACP: Ears, Eyes & Skin	4 weeks
ACP: The Expert Generalist	6 weeks
Critical Enquiry	Year-long course
Clinical & Communication Skills II **	Year-long course
PF: Integration of Physician Roles in Family Medicine	Year-long course

*ACP = Advanced Clinical Presentations course

**Includes procedural skills

Students will have year-long courses in Clinical and Communication Skills, with more procedural skills teaching. They will progress to the Integration of Physician Roles course with more sophisticated exploration of the roles of a physician. Students will take the Critical Enquiry course, where, supported by experienced physician researchers, they will learn how to design research and make a research proposal.

Students will continue with longitudinal placements with family physicians and will have more placements in communities with family physicians to build on their experience from Year 1.

COURSE	DURATION	COURSE	DURATION
Section A (Emerg, Anaesth, Peds, OBGyn/L&D, subspec med)	14 weeks	Electives	18 weeks
Section B (Surgery, Med CTU, Psych)	14 weeks	Curricular Units (C1 - C4)	8 weeks
Section C (Community)	14 weeks	Transition to Residency	12 weeks

*New Clership model to take place for 2025-2026

Students will begin this with an “Introduction to clerkship” unit to prepare them for the transition to the role of junior members of health care team in different clinical settings. Students will complete at least 18 weeks in a longitudinal integrated clerkship (LIC) in a community setting. The remainder of the clerkship clinical placements will take place in a block-based model where they are immersed in one discipline for several weeks in a row. By the end of clerkship, students will have completed clinical placements in family medicine, psychiatry, internal medicine (and related specialities), surgery (and related specialties), pediatrics, obstetrics & gynecology, emergency medicine, and anaesthesia.

In addition to completing these core requirements, students will also complete clinical electives to enhance and supplement their learning. These electives will be scheduled to enhance student learning as the timing will not be dependent on the deadlines related to applying for residency positions.

Periodically, students will be brought “back to class” to review higher level concepts in classroom and simulation settings, including at the end of clerkship when they return to class for a ‘readiness for residency’ curriculum, designed to facilitate their transition to their postgraduate education in Family Medicine.

Graduates of the MD portion of this program will be well prepared to enter Family Medicine Residency. Transition to Family Medicine training occurs under the authority and recommendation of the Queen’s Family Medicine Residency Program Committee once postgraduate entry requirements are met, including being eligible for educational license as per the CPSO. Students will receive an offer from the Post Graduate Family Medicine Training program in year 3 conditional on successfully completing the MD Program. Once that offer is accepted students will be able to transition into Queen’s Family Medicine Residency without entering the CaRMS matching process. Durham region is home to The Queen’s-Bowmanville–Oshawa-Lakeridge (QBOL) Family Medicine Residency which is one of four sites of the highly acclaimed Queen’s University Family Medicine Postgraduate Programs (the others being Kingston and the Thousand Islands, Belleville- Quinte, Peterborough-Kawartha).

Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Call to Action #24

We call upon medical and nursing schools in Canada to require all students to take a course dealing with Indigenous health issues, including the history and legacy of residential schools, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Treaties and Indigenous rights, and Indigenous teachings and practices. This will require skills-based training in intercultural competency, conflict resolution, human rights, and anti-racism.

This Call to Action requires ongoing response and commitment.

Given the nature of knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviours to be shared with our medical learners, rather than create a single, stand-alone course (which could serve to silo this content in a single place in our curriculum), Queen’s MD Program has addressed this call by creating a cross-curricular integrated thread. As such, Queen’s Medical students receive initial foundational instruction in Year 1 courses MEDS 113 Introduction to Physician Roles, MEDS 117 Heath Determinants, and MEDS 123 Population Health (including instruction of the history and legacy of residential schools, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Treaties and Indigenous rights, and Indigenous teachings and practices, including intercultural competency, conflict resolution, human rights, and anti-racism) which includes both instruction and mandatory assessment. This curriculum includes presentations and panels by local Indigenous Community members. This foundational instruction is expanded upon in Year 2 integrated throughout in Clinical Foundations and Clinical and Communication Skills courses (all of which have been assigned the new MCC Presentation 78-9 Indigenous Health as a learning objective) and is continued throughout the clinical Clerkship of Years 3 and 4.

It is important to note that this integration is a work-in-progress as we continue to evaluate and map our curriculum, finalize a gap analysis, and augment our current content.

This is an in-person curriculum with some virtual and asynchronous components.

Year 1

Fall term

Winter term

Year 2

Fall term

Winter term

Year 3 & 4*