Queens General Hospital will be welcoming four new family medicine residents over the next two years.
One resident starting in August another in December and two more joining next year will each spend 5 months training alongside family medicine doctors in Queens.
The influx of student doctors is part of the Dalhousie Family Medicine Residency Satellite program being operated in partnership with Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia Health, and the Queens General Hospital Foundation.
Doctor Tarah Millen practices on the South Shore and helps mentor residents.
She says a residency in a rural area helps patients get access to medical care and provides residents with learning opportunities they may not get in a larger centre, providing “lots more hands-on because there’s many learners in the city. And here there’s less amounts of learners and they can get lots of hand-on experience with wonderful physicians and preceptors.”
Millen says that hands on experience will extend to many corners of the hospital.
“They’ll be working with the family doctors who work at Queens General Hospital. They’ll be spending time with them doing a variety of things including clinic, emergency room, hospitalist, and long-term care facility.”
Dr Amy McMullin works at Queens General and says the partnerships between Nova Scotia Health and the Queens General Hospital Foundation have made it possible to accommodate these additional residents.
“The Foundation has been a huge support for the past year or two. They've been developing call room space for residents as well they have helped renovate our procedure clinic on the second floor. And they've been really supportive, hand in hand with Nova Scotia Health,” said McMullin. “They've also helped us find housing for the residents while they're here. So, they've been immense support we couldn't have done it without them.”
The goal of the satellite residency program is to provide a look at what life looks like in rural areas in the hopes some of today’s residents will choose to call Queens home when they begin their practice.
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