Public Health and Preventive Medicine Residency Program

The first year is spent in Basic Clinical Training (BCT).red on a regional population basis.

For details of the curriculum in year 1 and 2 in Family Medicine, please go to:

https://www.ualberta.ca/family-medicine/postgraduate/residency-program/index2.html

This rotation provides the resident with experience of "shadowing" a senior manager in a public health department.

Academic courses for 12-20 months, including any project requirements, on a full-time basis. This includes mandatory graduate courses in Epidemiology and Biostatistics and can work towards a Masters degree at either the University of Alberta or an alternate academic institution, subject to approval by the Residency Program Committee (RPC). At the University of Alberta, this would work toward a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree.

Complete academic courses per above.

Core Public Health rotations.

Field placements providing specialized, practical skills in communicable disease control, environmental health, health promotion, chronic disease/injury prevention, surveillance and other basic public health topics.

Core Public Health rotations.

Field placements providing specialized, practical skills in health policy and management of public health programs.

The last two years of the residency focus on rotations which provide the specialized, practical skills and knowledge required by a public health and preventive medicine specialist.  These rotations will be structured so as to provide the resident with increasing responsibilities as they progress through their training.  Communicable disease control, environmental health, chronic disease/injury prevention, and surveillance rotations will provide a foundation to the resident to then move into more complex areas such as health policy, management of public health programs and vulnerable populations.

The focus on population health, prevention or early intervention in disease processes.

There are extensive opportunities to collaborate with other professionals and provide physician leadership in program and/or policy development and evaluation and research – every day is different!

Opportunities for broad health impacts through programs and policies (eg. vaccination program that have prevented and eliminated diseases). Opportunities for further training in field epidemiology and occupational medicine.

Direct patient care work can be limited, depending on the type of work chosen within the specialty.

• Opportunity to be proactive and deal with preventing problems/disease.
• Opportunity for large-scale health impacts across the population.

Although there are opportunities for direct patient work (e.g. in community clinics or specialized clinics i.e. STI, TB, Inner City medicine, Travel), the specialty is focused on dealing with the needs and problems in populations or groups of people. So instead of a stethescope and lab tests we are using population diagnostic tools such as epidemiology, to study trends and risk factors in diseases and instead of individual treatments,we provide programs and policies to improve population health outcomes.

Because a set of infectious diseases are reportable to Public health, we deal routinely with these diseases that are reportable (eg. TB, STIs, travel medicine, foodborne/waterborne illnesses), and environmental exposures; however, injuries and non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, cardiac disease, cancers and smoking-, nutrition- and sedentary-related illnesses are also dealt with through a population-based approach (surveillance, disease prevention, health promotion)

• Consulting with physicians, nurses and other professionals on public health issues
• Responding to infectious disease outbreaks by working with a team of professionals investigating and working to control the outbreak 
• Chairing meetings, such as on emergency planning and management
• Meeting with staff to plan for chronic disease prevention program
• Clinical work
• Research / literature search / policy review
• Help lead the response to emerging public health threats
• Health Advocacy

• Very flexible and accommodates varying needs.
• Primarily office hours in addition to on call taken from home.

• Most of the work is done during office hours on weekdays.
• After hours call is taken from home, and most emergency issues can be dealt with from home by phone.
• Opportunities for part-time work, including patient-care duties.

• Most positions are salaried and include health benefit plans, vacation, pensions, etc.
• Salary range: $200,000 to $400,000, depending on years of practice and position, plus benefits which are considered to be about 20% of salary
• Patient-care work would be added onto this base salary

• Continued demand for Medical Officers of Health
• Over the next ten years, there will be more demand for public health and preventive medicine specialists to work in areas outside of traditional public health roles, for example in Primary Care Networks / Family Care Clinics, community clinics, or as medical administrators
• Emergency areas (infection control, emergency preparedness) will offer new career choices
• Increasing work in Chronic Disease Prevention and Healthy Built Environments to address high and growing burdens of non-communicable diseases
• Academic positions may also be available

• Self starter who is able to use or adapt current resources and shape them in order to meet a different needs
• Can consider issues form a broader perspective – system or population level
• Knows how to ask and answer question
• Demonstrates interest in specialty through his/her electives
• Thrives in multi-disciplinary environment

• Do one or more electives in public health and preventive medicine
• Do an elective in related disciplines, e.g. inner city health, travel medicine, TB clinic, STI, Indigenous health, etc.
• Demonstrate an ability to work within a complicated organization
• Demonstrate leadership/managerial talent
• Demonstrate orientation to prevention and population health
• Volunteer with a community agency

Subspecialties do not specifically exist in public health and preventive medicine. However, some rotations and electives can be shaped to help to increase focus on a resident's areas of interest. Additional training in Field Epidemiology may be available through Public Health Agency of Canada.

Note: Occupational Medicine is a subspecialty residency program that can be applied to by those completing internal medicine or PHPM.

• During family medicine and clinical rotations, call will be in-house, following the practices of the specific rotation.
• Public Health and Preventive Medicine call will normally commence in the PGY-3 year. Call is typically home call, and conforms to PARA requirements.

• Canadian Public Health Association annual meeting
• American Public Health Association Conferences
• Canadian Immunization Conference
• Practice Management Institute courses through the CMA