Year-long program, in partnership with Interior Health, will strengthen clinical skills and deepen community connections
Four UBC medical students are now calling the East Kootenays home as they begin a full year of hands-on medical training at East Kootenay Regional Hospital (EKRH) and family medicine clinics in Cranbrook and Kimberley.
The students are part of UBC’s Integrated Community Clerkships (ICC), a program that places third-year medical students in a rural community for a full academic year to train with practising physicians.
Through extensive collaboration with Interior Health and EKRH administration, the new ICC training site in the East Kootenays will immerse students in the unique realities of rural medicine, allowing them to strengthen their clinical skills and build connections with patients, physicians and the broader community.
The program is looking to inspire more students to stay and practise where they trained after graduation.
For third-year UBC Southern Medical Program student Ariel Stuart, the opportunity allows her to train in her home community of Cranbrook. “I am deeply grateful for the chance to be able to learn and train in the East Kootenay health-care community,” she says. “I also want to practise as a generalist in the region, and the ICC model will help prepare me for my future.”
The East Kootenay site is the newest of nine UBC ICC training sites across the province, which also includes communities such as Trail, Vernon, Revelstoke, Comox and Fort St. John. For Dr. Craig Lynch, East Kootenay ICC Site Director and a clinical instructor with the UBC Department of Family Practice, it marks an important milestone for medical education in the region.
“The physicians and health-care teams are genuinely excited to teach and mentor these students,” he says. “We also want them to receive a rigorous medical education while experiencing the incredible lifestyle and sense of community that make rural medicine so rewarding.”
Over the year, UBC MD students will be immersed in team-based care, training alongside the same doctors and allied health professionals, while following patients through different stages of their medical journeys in both clinic and hospital settings.
“The training site will deepen students’ understanding of diverse health needs and strengthen the region’s network of care providers across the East Kootenays,” says Dr. Sarah McCorquodale, Special Advisor to the Regional Associate Dean pro tem, Interior. “It also helps to expand dedicated medical education space for learners and faculty in the Interior Health region with an excellent background in medical teaching.”
The ICC is part of UBC’s unique province-wide MD program, delivered at four regional sites, which trains students in urban, rural, remote and Indigenous communities across BC.
To date, 93 per cent of UBC MD graduates who attend UBC for postgraduate medical training remain in BC to practise, and many stay in the communities where they trained.
“Establishing this training opportunity at EKRH provides medical students with hands-on experience in a rural setting, helping them build the skills and confidence needed to thrive in rural communities,” says Laura Slipp, Executive Director of Clinical Operations in the East Kootenays.
“Programs like the ICC play a vital role in recruitment and retention. When learners train here, they form meaningful connections and are more likely to return as part of our future medical workforce, which may lead to a next generation of physicians delivering high quality care for East Kootenay residents.”
For Stuart, the opportunity allows her to train and live in the region she plans on serving.
“It’s a chance for me to pay it forward while gaining first-hand experience helping the community I grew up in,” adds Stuart. “I’ll also be able to live at home again and spend time with my family and friends.”
The partnership is also an opportunity to celebrate in the community. Interior Health and UBC are looking for opportunities to host an event at the new EKRH training site later this summer.
Since the Southern Medical Program first launched at UBC Okanagan in 2011, the program has educated and trained 380 new physicians for BC. Over 1,500 physicians across the Interior Health region support the delivery of undergraduate and postgraduate medical education.
