Postgraduate Education

The Future of Family Medicine

The Program

Dalhousie’s family medicine residency program is designed to make you an effective and compassionate family physician who can care for patients in hospital, ambulatory, and community settings. 

With training sites across the Maritimes, our program prepares you to work in Maritime communities. As a resident, you’ll be immersed in your chosen community and play a vital role in patient care.

Throughout the program, you’ll gain in-depth clinical experience, explore areas of personal interest and build the skills to practise comprehensive family medicine. Clinical faculty support you along the way as you care for thousands of patients.
 

Life as a Family Physician

Being a family physician is exciting and varied, offering long-term, meaningful relationships with patients, community members and fellow health care professionals. 

It is a diagnostic journey of figuring out answers that are not always obvious at first, then customizing management using the in-depth knowledge you have of your patients.
 

A Typical Day 

A typical day can range from the birth of a child to the satisfaction of assisting a patient in quitting smoking. It also brings its challenges, such as identifying a communicable disease or diagnosing a terminal illness. As a family physician, you can bring a sense of connection and comfort to families during difficult times and celebrate successes together. 
 

Depth and Breadth of Your Role 

The exciting challenge of family medicine lies in its depth and breadth. Depth is the honour of forming long-lasting relationships with your patients as you partner with them through the chapters of their life story. Breadth is the complexity of diagnosing and managing chronic disease, especially in the context of multimorbidity, along with the uncertainty of the undifferentiated symptoms patients present with. 

As a family physician, you are there as symptoms begin, work towards giving your patients clarity and direction as you figure out a diagnosis, and continue to be there long after appropriate management has begun. These challenges can be overwhelming if handled alone as a sole practitioner in the community. As we look to the future of family medicine and our family physicians, challenges are best handled by teams of skilled health care professionals.

When doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, and other health professionals work closely together, it’s called collaborative care. Working with colleagues from other professions is more fun, uplifting and ultimately more efficient and effective.

Find out how to contact our postgraduate program director and chief residents on our department contact page.