Camrose rural training site coming CaRMS 2025
In 2025, the Department of Family Medicine’s Residency Program will welcome Camrose as a training site in the CaRMS rural stream. Earlier this month at the Society of Rural Physicians of Canada conference in Edmonton, the Camrose training site was previewed in the University of Alberta’s Family Medicine promotional media and material. Dr. Amber Jorgensen and Dr. Jeff Bennett will be serving as Site Co-Directors, their combined leadership lending a wealth of diverse experience and skills. Camrose is prepared and eager to train two residents of their own, as they have gradually been hosting more and more rotations of Red Deer residents over the past five years.
Dr. Jorgensen is rural-raised from the town of Olds. Medicine as a career gradually called to her as she completed related training through lifeguarding and then as an EMT. She finished her undergraduate at the University of Calgary, and her family medicine residency through the University of Alberta in Red Deer a decade ago. After graduation she settled in Camrose, working at the Smith Clinic in family practice and out of St. Mary’s Hospital in a multitude of roles over the years. Women’s health and breastfeeding medicine feature naturally in her family practice and in her work with the local women’s shelter, while her active hospitalist role is with GP Oncology.
Dr. Bennett practices primarily out of St. Mary’s as a FP anesthesiologist working 3 weeks on and 1 week off, with his off week spent either as a locum in surrounding communities or in the emergency department. He too completed his family medicine residency in Red Deer. Originally from Spruce Grove, Dr. Bennett remembers that his eighth grade science class studying the human body systems was the beginning of his fierce fascination with medicine. As a child he struggled with asthma and allergies, but he had a diligent paediatrician who inspired him to later pursue a master’s degree in paediatrics at the University of Alberta before he realized he didn’t want to stop caring for patients when they were no longer children. He completed medical school and chose family medicine to ensure he could support patients throughout their lives, then tacked the Family Practice Anesthesia Program on to his resume.
Each of the co-directors were called to rural medicine in their own ways, with Dr. Jorgensen knowing from the beginning that she didn’t want to live in a big city and that she wanted variety, adaptability, and flexibility in her practice. She completed her integrated community clerkship in Rocky Mountain House, which solidified her resolve to practice rural. Dr. Bennett completed his own integrated clerkship in Camrose, which was how he came to be acquainted with the community. When he graduated in 2022, he was immediately drawn back to Camrose as practice there had made such a positive impression on him.
“I love procedural-type medicine. I love being hands-on and I really appreciate the immediate gratification of anesthetic. Family medicine has challenges that I applaud every family doctor everywhere for,” says Dr. Bennett in regards to the patience required by family physicians as the work can involve delayed gratification. “When my patient has high blood pressure in anesthetics, I administer medication and it goes down. When they're too awake, I push a medication and they fall asleep. When they're too asleep, I push a medication and they wake up. I really enjoy the pace, and the gratifying experience to be able to see a problem, recognize a problem and fix that problem because of my training and my experiences.”
Dr. Jorgensen says, “I feel we're a little bit unique for a rural site in that we have a lot of things that family doctors are able to do, and we're able to practice to full scope and be pretty independent, but we have quite a few specialists that can help us out as well, and we're able to provide a lot of services to our patients in the community.”
Regarding the key aspects of rural medicine Camrose exemplifies, Dr. Bennett emphasizes the importance of how nearly all aspects of training are able to be taught in Camrose to ensure continuity of care. In addition to a main preceptor, the learner will get to know all of the local family physicians and the expansive specialist team Camrose houses as well. “We’re big enough to have three general surgeons, an orthopedic surgeon, a plastic surgeon, an internist and soon two obstetricians—a hospitalist team that covers the whole hospital. We’re a stroke centre. So while we are a rural site, we can handle a lot.”
In terms of what the co-directors are looking forward to the most about Camrose becoming a rural site, they’re excited to have their own residents for a two-year period and integrate them into their team. “We have a really great team of preceptors who are all really engaged. I don’t think it will be a big jump into having our own residents,” says Dr. Jorgensen. “It will basically be a progression of what we’ve already been doing.”
“I'm really looking forward to having that learner relationship over those two years, and seeing the learner more as a colleague or a potential colleague,” adds Dr. Bennett. “It also allows more people to see how amazing of a community Camrose is. As a med student here, I was invited to do shinny hockey. They play it Monday through Friday, September through June, at lunchtime.”
Dr. Bennett, who learned how to skate in med school, says you don’t have to be skilled to play. It’s more about the bonding and spirit of the activity, the hour of which he feels really sets apart the Camrose experience. In addition to hockey (he has always been an avid Oilers fan), Dr. Bennett’s free time is spent with his four kids. “My fun is their fun, my interests have blended in with their interests. My oldest two are nine and seven, so we’ve started playing a lot of board and card games. They’re getting to the stage with their own sports now where we can begin to do those things together too.”
“My favourite part of Camrose is the valley and trail system,” says Dr. Jorgensen, who has three children of her own. “I had no idea that it existed in Camrose before I moved here and started to explore. We cross-country ski in the winter, mountain bike and hike in the summer. It is much more than I would have expected for a town in the prairies.”
To learn more about the Camrose rural training site, visit its webpage here.