Postgraduate

PG Director Dr Daniel Grushka

Dr. Daniel Grushka, Postgraduate Program Director

The Department of Family Medicine at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University, is an academic leader of family medicine in Canada. A centre of scholarly excellence, we are committed to training comprehensive family physicians and future leaders in health care. We do this through a highly adaptable program that includes tailor-made curriculum and educational programs for residents.

We believe residency is a rite of passage that is much more than just a means to getting a medical license. We trust our residents to be the best judge when it comes to recognizing the kind of experience that will assist them in becoming the physicians and people they aspire to be.

We are dedicated to training and mentoring our residents to ensure they acquire the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary to be confident and competent family physicians.

Our program is built around three core values:

Flexibility

Our program allows residents to take charge of their own learning

  • We offer training programs that span the complete urban to rural spectrum
  • Ample elective time and geographic choices for electives
  • Strong support for research interests from world-renowned primary care researchers
  • An academic program based on a credit earning system that allows you to customize learning to your preferred style and make use of opportunities such as formal faculty development sessions, workshops, conferences, self-reading and online CME activities to fulfill required learning objectives

Support

The Department of Family Medicine is committed to providing residents with individual support

  • Faculty advisors provide 1:1 support for each resident throughout their residency training program whether they’re doing on- or off-service rotations. Mandatory meetings/discussions are held tri-annually.
  • # of faculty advisor meetings: 6 per resident over 2 years on average
  • FMRW (Family Medicine Residents of Western) a resident driven organization that looks after our residents’ educational and social needs
  • Resident to faculty ratio is 1:greater than 1 to 2:1 depending on the training site

Dedication

We’re committed to each and every one of our residents’ education and training

  • A behavioural medicine curriculum that replaces mandatory psychiatry rotations  in most programs
  • Family medicine training that lets our residents take charge of their practice
  • A comprehensive palliative care curriculum that includes choices in different types of palliative care rotations and education sessions
  • Ample time and opportunities are provided for educational activities

Post Graduate Program Facts:

  • Our residents complete over 23000 hours of academic learning annually
  • Western residents who have won the College of Family Physicians of Canada prestigious Murray Stalker Award
    • Dr. Jane Thornton, 2018
    • Dr. Brenna Velker, 2016
    • Dr. Clarissa Holding, 2010
    • Dr. Eric Wong, 2004
    • Dr. Susan Woolhouse, 2003
  • # of hours of protected time/yr. for academic learning : 3 hours X 52 weeks + additional hours for palliative and behavioural medicine