FAQs

The application form for the Sarnia Clerkship can be found here. The application entails 3 short essay questions and uploading a recent CV. Applications will be accepted until Sunday October 20, 2024.

For the 2025-2026 academic year, a maximum of 8 students will be accepted into the Sarnia Clerkship.

For the first cohort of the Sarnia clerkship, only students who apply will be considered for the program.

Your application is not binding. If you are you interested in the Sarnia Clerkship, please go ahead and apply! You will be given a last chance after applying to change your mind. After this point, your decision will be final.

If you participate in the Sarnia Clerkship, we expect you to live in Sarnia for the duration of your clerkship year.

As a one-year pilot project for first cohort of Sarnia clerks (completing their clerkship in the 2025-2026 academic year), Schulich will offer $800/month for 12 months to contributes to housing costs in Sarnia. Sarnia clerks will be given the freedom to select their own accommodations in Sarnia based on their preferences and needs. More information on housing and travel supports can be found here.

Sarnia clerks will be given the freedom to select their own accommodations in Sarnia based on their preferences and needs. Local support is available to connect students with a real estate agent or local landlords to assist in finding appropriate housing.

The Sarnia Clerkship provides clerks with hands-on clinical training -- you will be the only medical student in your rotation. The one-to-one nature of the Sarnia Clerkship allows you to have more responsibility and more hands-on experience. It also gives you the opportunity to build stronger relationships with your preceptors which is advantageous for your career development. Furthermore, Bluewater Health provides students with a communal and supportive training environment with world-class facilities.

The rotations in the Sarnia Clerkship are the same as those in London and Windsor. The core rotations are: Acute Care (Emergency Medicine, Anesthesiology), Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, General Surgery, Obstetrics & Gynecology, Pediatrics, and Psychiatry. Pediatrics currently cannot be completed in Sarnia, so Sarnia clerks will have to return to their home campus for Pediatrics.

Clerks are required to gain diverse clinical training experiences. This entails completing rotations in the community as well as in tertiary care/ academic health sciences centres. Sarnia-based rotations will serve as clinical training in the community. For students to have experience training in a tertiary care facility, they will need to return to London or Windsor for that experience.

All core rotations except for Pediatrics can be supported in Sarnia and students will be expected to complete them there. The only rotation that currently cannot be completed in Sarnia is Pediatrics. For Pediatrics, Sarnia clerks will return to their home campus to complete that rotation.

It may be possible to do your Pediatrics rotation in Windsor, provided that there is capacity in Windsor to accommodate you. We cannot guarantee availability at this time. Training capacity will be confirmed closer to the beginning of your rotation.

For the Sarnia Clerkship, your rural/regional rotations will be based in Sarnia and Petrolia. If you are doing your clerkship in London or Windsor, there are other regional/rural rotations available to you that are coordinated by the Distributed Education (DE) office. You will have the opportunity to indicate your preferences in the clerkship lottery. DE staff will do our best to give you your preferred regional/rural rotation, but we cannot guarantee it.

It is possible, but we cannot guarantee it. Sarnia clerks get priority to train and complete their rotations in Sarnia. If a rotation is free due to schedule changes, a clerk from London or Windsor can fill that vacancy in Sarnia. However, if a rotation has a Sarnia clerk, then other clerks are not able to come to Sarnia for that rotation as Sarnia accepts one clerk per rotation at a time.

Clerkship involves subspecialty selectives and open selectives. Subspecialty selectives are two weeks long and are available in Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, Psychiatry and General Surgery. Open selectives are two weeks long and are offered to give students flexibility to explore their clinical interests. Each student gets one open selective. The open selectives in Sarnia are Critical Care, Endocrinology, Geriatrics, Neurology, Respirology, General Surgery, Orthopedic Surgery, Oncology, Otolaryngology, Urology, Emergency Medicine, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Pathology, Psychiatry, Radiology, Palliative Care. More may be added in the future.

Your written and oral exams will take place in Sarnia for all rotations done there. For your OSCEs, you will be required to return to your home campus. Your mileage for the OSCEs will be covered by the Distributed Education office.

Electives in your 4th year will work the same way for Sarnia clerks as all other students. There will be no special restrictions for Sarnia clerks regarding which electives you take and where you would like to take them.

It is your decision if you want to remain in Sarnia for 4th year or return to your home campus. If you choose to stay in Sarnia, the Distributed Education and Undergraduate Medical Education offices will make sure you can virtually connect to your classes where possible.