Undergraduate Program Report
With the first round of CaRMS behind us and the end of the year in sight for the first, second and fourth years, we are looking ahead to the 2021-22 Academic year. Congratulations to the fourth years who have matched and will be starting residency in July. Over 70 Western medical students matched to Family Medicine across the country.
When we look ahead to the 2021-22 academic year, we hope that the vaccination effort will be slowly putting the pandemic in the rear-view mirror. We hope to return to some more of our “normal” activities. Currently, the Longitudinal Clinical Elective (LCE) is planned to restart in January 2022. This initiative was barely off the ground in 2020 when the pandemic hit. This new clinical opportunity for first and second year students puts a focus on the importance of generalism into the curriculum early and gives students the opportunity to spend a few half-days per month with a family physician over an extended period of several months. We will be starting to recruit preceptors for this very important component of the curriculum over the next few months, so please watch your inboxes.
The other important initiative you will soon be seeing requests for will be fall 2021 fourth year electives. These are extremely important to students as this is the time they solidify their interest in family medicine preparing for the 2022 CaRMS match. Again, for 2021-22, no visiting electives will be allowed by the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada (AFMC) due to the uncertainty of the pandemic and implications on travel. I encourage everyone to consider taking a fourth year student in the fall to teach them what an amazing and rewarding career family medicine can be.
Lastly, I want to express my sincerest thank you to everyone who has been involved with Family Medicine Undergraduate Education this year. It was been a year like no other, with many challenges and setbacks. Thanks for your ongoing dedication to the physicians of tomorrow and here’s looking forward to 2021-22.
Don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions, concerns or comments: Scott McKay smckay28@uwo.ca.
