Please refer to the program description specific to the general stream (see below) for details and apply to this stream separately, should it be available. In the event that the general stream is not one of the options, CMG candidates invited for an interview may inform the Program Administrator of their interest to pursue General Stream immediately following their match result.
The first year of the PHPM Residency is dedicated to Basic Clinical Training. PHPM residents focus on clinical areas relevant to the specialty (e.g., Family Medicine, Emergency Medicine, Infectious Diseases). There are opportunities for residents to pursue particular interests through electives.
The second year of the program is dedicated to academic coursework, covering the basic sciences underpinning public health practice. Courses in epidemiology, biostatistics, and other public health sciences provide the theoretical and conceptual training that the resident requires. Placements before and after the formal academic training are designed to reinforce the relevance of the scientific training for professional practice. Residents are encouraged to complete a Master's degree, if they do not already have one; individual arrangements are made to ensure that the program supports them in this goal through integration with PHPM core rotations.
The remainder of training (three blocks of 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th year) are field placements in public health core rotations, with 13 blocks of electives.
Mandatory rotations: Years 3-5 of the General stream
| Fields | Number of blocks | Descriptions |
|---|
| Academic Training | 10 | Focus on Epidemiological and Biostatistical methodologies. |
| Communicable Disease/ Health Protection | 3 blocks junior & 3 blocks senior | Focus on communicable disease control activities such as case/contact management and outbreak response. Jr. rotation is done at a local public health unit. |
| Health Promotion/Disease Prevention | 3 | Work as part of a multidisciplinary team on Health Promotion and Disease Prevention strategies at the local public health unit. Explore ways to connect with different populations and community partners in a variety of settings and using different communication strategies. |
| Surveillance/Epidemiology | 4 | Develop expertise in assessing the health needs of a defined population, participate in the development and/or evaluation of a disease or injury surveillance system and/or applied epidemiologic research relevant to public health. |
| Environmental & Occupational Health | 3 | Act as a consultant on environmental and occupational health issues and focused study/learning of the breadth of environmental health in public health practice. |
| Public Health Policy and Planning | 4 | The resident learns to apply skills to the different stages of the policy cycle: agenda setting, policy formulation, decision-making, policy implementation and policy evaluation. |
| Senior Management and Leadership | 6 | An extended rotation intended to be in the 5th and final year of training as "transition to practice". Residents are to consolidate their learning and assume leadership/management roles at the level of an Associate Medical Officer of Health. |
In all training sites, residents work with public health and preventive medicine specialists, medical officers of health and associate medical officers of health, and other accredited public health professionals. The goal of the core rotations is to acquire competence, as defined by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons Objectives of Training in PHPM, in communicable disease control, health promotion, environmental health, disease surveillance, PH emergency management, policy development, PH ethics, PH management, leadership and research, applied across different populations and contexts.
Sixteen blocks of training are elective. Most residents choose to undertake their electives at the end of their training or in relation to the academic training to undertake a major research project.
