Respirology Fellowship

Program Curriculum

This residency program is for 2 year(s)

The program length of training does not exceed the Royal College or College of Family Physicians of Canada standard.

 Clinical Rotations (as per Royal College Guidelines):

  • Outpatient Clinics (minimum 4 Blocks) 
    • Weekly longitudinal clinic (2 years)
    • General Respirology
    • Asthma Centre
    • Pulmonary Hypertension
    • Interstitial Lung Disease
    • COPD/ Pulmonary Rehab
    • Pleural Disease
    • Lung Cancer (Diagnostic Assessment Pathway)
    • Cystic Fibrosis
    • Non-Invasive Ventilation
    • Sleep
    • Urgent Clinic
  • Inpatient and Consultation Services (minimum 4 Blocks) 
    • London Health Science Centre (VH/ UH)
  • Electives (6-8 Blocks) 
    • Research
    • Lung Transplantation
    • Thoracic Surgery
    • Community 
    • Resident choice
  • Critical Care Medicine (2 Blocks)
  • Interventional Pulmonology (minimum 2 blocks)
  • Sleep (2 Blocks)
  • Junior Attending (0.5 Blocks)

Academic Curriculum

  • Academic Half Day (Wednesday)
    • Resident “Office-Time” (1.5 hours) 
      • Time is provided on a weekly basis to allow trainees to engage in patient follow-up or other office related responsibilities as it pertains to in-patient/ out-patient longitudinal care
    • Faculty-led OSCE style cases (2.0 hours) 
      • Weekly teaching sessions (case-based) are led by a faculty member in an OSCE-style forum driven by topics outlined in the Royal College Objectives-of-Training
    • Radiology Case-of-the-Week (0.5 hours) 
      • On-call Faculty present radiology cases to challenge trainee interpretation and management
    • Half-Day seminar (1.0 hours) 
      • Weekly seminar-style presentation by Faculty, Visiting speakers, trainees on selected topics in Respiratory Medicine.  The topics are driven from the Royal College objectives of training and rotate in a two-year cycle.  Trainees will be expected to present 1-2 times/ year.

  • Respirology Journal Club (Monday)
    • A Royal College accredited activity that takes place on a weekly basis.  Two articles are presented (1 Faculty/ 1 Trainee) weekly.

  • Thoracic Radiology Rounds
    • Two separate Thoracic Radiology Rounds are held on a weekly basis at Victoria Hospital and St. Joseph’s Health Care.  This is a Radiologist-led discussion based on active outpatient and inpatient cases.  Trainees are encouraged to attend both weekly rounds.

  • Quality Assurance/ Improvement Curriculum: 
    • Trainees will receive quality improvement instruction with an annual didactic lecture in addition to an 8-hour quality improvement curriculum session delivered in two 4-hour sessions in collaboration with the Department of Medicine). 
    • Knowledge Translation Rounds: Newly introduced rounds that are directed to review practice guidelines and discuss strategies for local implementation of those guidelines. 
    • Quality Improvement (Morbidity and Mortality) Rounds: Quarterly, residents and faculty members will present patient cases with adverse outcomes. The purpose of these rounds is to review each case in detail to evaluate systems and processes by which errors/adverse outcomes may occur. Each case will be assessed with a root cause/incident analysis (or other QI tool) to determine the major factor(s) which contributed to the outcome. Subsequently, practice/process improvement recommendations will be generated from this analysis and group discussion.

  • Multidisciplinary Pathology Rounds:
    • Monthly joint rounds between Respirology and Pathology.  Three cases are presented on a monthly basis.  Faculty and trainees will present cases approximately 2-3 times/ year.  

  • Multidisciplinary Interstitial Lung Disease Rounds:
    • Bi-monthly joint rounds between Respirology, Radiology and Pathology.  Cases are submitted by Faculty and trainees for a multidisciplinary discussion for a consensus diagnosis.

  • Resident Assessment and Evaluation: 

    • Assessments:
      • Mock Exam – Three times/ year
      • OSCE exam - Once per year
      • Written exam - Once per year
      • PFT OSCE – Once per year
      • Radiology OSCE – Twice / year
    • Evaluations:
      • ITERS
      • Procedure evaluations forms (OBAT, EBUS-STAT, thoracentesis, US skills)
      • 360- evaluations 
      • Mini-CEX
      • Review by Competence Committee on quarterly basis
      • Implementation of CBME in 2020

Training Sites

  • LHSC-VH – London Health Sciences Centre (Victoria Hospital)
  • LHSC-UH – London Health Sciences Centre (University Hospital)
  • SJHC – St. Joseph’s Health Care