Celebrating 25 Years of Family Medicine Residency Training

At Michael Garron Hospital, we pride ourselves on mentoring the next generation of healthcare providers. Last month’s 25^thanniversary of the Family Medicine Residency Program was a celebration of just that. Current and former residents joined faculty physicians and staff to celebrate at three well-attended events in October 2016 – a Friday evening wine & cheese, a Saturday CME lecture and an evening gala at the Aga Khan Museum.

David White, Interim Chair, UofT Department of Family & Community Medicine, spoke of the importance of family medicine as a community-based discipline, noting that community affiliated teaching hospitals now make up the majority of the university’s academic sites. He described the event as “a wonderful opportunity to recognize the great work of the founders and teachers, the accomplishments of many illustrious alumni, and the contribution that our community-based programs have made to education and research that advance our discipline.”

Since the residency program’s inception in 1991, over 325 Family Medicine residents have received training here. A testament to the success of the program is the number of residents who stay on to work in this community and hospital. Dr. John Abrahamson, Chief of Medicine, says “We have to be quite proud that many of our graduates who have left the program have stayed and worked within the community. This speaks very well to the culture and teaching activities that are carried out not only within the hospital but within the community. I think that overall that trend can only dramatically improve the care that we provide to the Toronto East Health Network.”

The 25 years have seen many changes:

• In the first year, all residents were U of T medical undergraduates. Today, they come from medical schools from all over Canada and across the world.
• There was a greater proportion of male residents in the early years of the program. Today over 60 percent of all Family Medicine Residents at U of T are female.
• Previously, rotating interns lived on-site in the Interns Residence on Sammon Avenue (now the K- Wing) where each had their own personal call room, which was essentially their ‘home’. Now resident call rooms are located on A-4 in what were previously the old L&D birthing rooms.
• At the program’s inception there were 14 Family Medicine residents. Now, in 2016, there are 36 residents, making MGH the second-largest family medicine program affiliated with UofT.

“So many things have changed since I completed my Rotating Internship at MGH in 1990-91, but some things have not” states Dr. Sal Spadafora, Vice Dean, Post MD Education, U of T. “What has not changed is the enthusiasm for this great good place, and for the young learners who cross its threshold no matter what decade it is. There is diaspora of graduates of this fantastic hospital that span the country, the continent and indeed the globe. No matter where we go, no matter what we do, we have been changed by our time spent here, and that change is for the better.”