Public Health & Preventive Medicine Program Information

PGY1 and PGY2

The emphasis in the first two years of the Public Health and Preventive Medicine residency is on solidifying clinical and decision-making skills which may be obtained by rotations in internal medicine, pediatrics, psychiatry, obstetrics and gynecology, surgery, family medicine or emergency medicine. Residents will also be introduced to Public Health and Preventive Medicine through weekly attendance at Academic Half Day and introductions to PH rotations typically Public Health and MedMicro at Provincial Laboratory.

Patient-Care rotations

Infectious diseases
This clinical rotation allows the resident to manage a variety of infectious disease under the mentorship of an infectious disease specialist in the setting of hospital consultations and ambulatory care clinics.
Microbiology
This laboratory investigation allows the resident to participate in the routine collection, preparation, isolation and identification of microbiological specimens in a tertiary care/provincial laboratory under the guidance of a microbiologist.
Infection Control
This clinical rotation allows residents to participate in nosocomial and community infection control practice (surveillance, isolation practices, quality control, outbreak investigation, contact investigations) within the setting of a tertiary care hospital or community setting.
Occupational Medicine
This rotation gives the resident the opportunity to work with an occupational medicine physician.
Communicable Disease Control (CDC)

(outbreaks, immunization, notifiable diseases methods, surveillance methods, infectious control)

This rotation provides the resident with a brief introduction to the content and methods of communicable disease control by moving the resident through various assignments with different CDC practitioners.

PGY2 to PGY5

Core PHPM Rotations

Inner City Health
The rotation provides the resident with experience in dealing with the issues facing the urban disadvantaged population.
First Nations and Inuit Health Branch (FNIHB)
The rotation provides the resident with experience dealing with contemporary First Nations and Inuit Health and multicultural health issues.
Rural Public Health
This rotation provides the resident with experience in working in a rural public health setting.
Provincial Public Health
This rotation provides the resident with the experience of public health at the provincial level with mandates for notifiable disease collection, analysis and reporting; policy formation, inter and intra provincial communications, liaison with regional public health offices.
Environmental Health
The rotation provides the resident the opportunity to work in local and provincial department of public health environment and understand how to apply the knowledge acquired in the academic year.
Communicable Disease Control (CDC)

To understand how to assess and manage an environmental health issue.

The rotation provides the resident with exposure in communicable disease control in local as well as provincial public health departments. The resident works with Medical Officers of Health, epidemiologists, public health nurses and environmental health officers in dealing with control of vaccine preventable diseases, enteric infections, bloodborne pathogens, tuberculosis, sexually transmitted diseases, travel-related illnesses and others of public health significance.

Health Status Assessment and Reporting
During this rotation the resident works with staff that produce health status/health needs reports.
Health Promotion/Disease Prevention
During this rotation the resident works with preceptors to develop and implement a health promotion approach to community health issues(s).
Health Planning
This rotation gives the resident experience in program planning in a Zone (regional) health authority setting.
Risk Communication and Media Relations
This rotation provides the resident with the opportunity to apply the concepts learned in the academic course work.
Disaster/Emergency Response Planning
This rotation provides the resident with the experience in planning for mass casualty events including bioterrorism and pandemic influenza.
Health Policy/Advocacy
The rotation builds upon the health promotion rotation and provides more specific experiences in policy and advocacy.
Management of Public Health Programs
This rotation provides the resident with experience of "shadowing" a senior manager in a public health department.