Exam Preparation

Prepare for success

At the Department of Family Medicine, we're dedicated to working with you throughout the program to ensure your successful completion of the certification exam.

Evidence-Based Medicine

Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) is taught in the first year of the program. The focus of this component of the curriculum is to ensure that you are comfortable finding, critiquing and integrating information from the medical literature. These objectives are taught through didactic lectures that cover the basics you need to critically review journal articles, as well as informal reviews in a journal club setting. Throughout first year, you'll acquire the necessary skills to critically appraise articles for use in your resident research projects.

Simulated office orals

The college exams reflect the knowledge base you'll acquire through your training, particularly with respect to developing an effective approach to patient-centred clinical method.

You'll be given multiple practice exams and receive individualized feedback, as well as a video of your encounters. You'll also benefit from the opportunity to examine and mark other residents. This exercise will help ensure that you fully understand the marking system used in the college oral examinations.

Written examinations

You'll be encouraged to read appropriate evidence-based material and will be given suitable resources to do so. The teaching unit, the hospital and the family medicine preceptors all have a family medicine library. Internet access to material can be obtained through the resource centre associated with the teaching unit and through our preceptors' offices. The curriculum provided throughout the program is an overview of family medicine. Sample exam questions are also available in the resource centre.