First Family Medicine Residents Start in Halton

Burlington, ON (June 30, 2011)

“Halton is a fabulous environment for training community-based residents,” said Dr. David Price, chair of the Department of Family Medicine, Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine at McMaster University. “We are delighted to have our first Halton matched residents starting.”

He said the bulk of their training will be in the Halton/Burlington region.  “Our plan over the next few years is to expand these placements to 20 residents in the two-year program.  We look forward to working with our family medicine and specialist colleagues to grow this program.”

Four of the residents will be located at the Halton McMaster Family Health Centre on Harvester Road in Burlington and two will be with family health care teams in Burlington and Waterdown. 

The residents will have hospital rotations at Joseph Brant Memorial Hospital in Burlington and at hospitals in Hamilton. In the second year rotations will be at Milton and Oakville hospitals. About 80% of the residents’ time is spent in patient care, with 20% in further education.

“The arrival of these six talented residents is the first of many important milestones that we will be celebrating as part of the City of Burlington’s partnership with the Region of Halton and McMaster University,” said Burlington Mayor Rick Goldring. “Together, we are committed to the vision of delivering quality health care services in our region. The citizens of Burlington will greatly benefit from our investment, which will bring additional health care professionals to our city.”

"On behalf of Halton Regional Council, I am pleased to welcome this new class of family medicine residents to the Halton McMaster Family Health Centre’s teaching unit, and to Halton. It is wonderful to have residents training in our community and we wish them every success. Halton Region supports the Centre as part of our collaborative approach to physician recruitment, together with all four local municipalities, physicians, local hospitals, clinics and academic institutions such as McMaster."

“We are delighted to welcome these first full-time family medicine residents to Joseph Brant Memorial Hospital. They are a wonderful group of residents and we are fortunate to have the chance to immerse them in the significant role family physicians have in our community hospital. They will experience the richness of the diversity of family medicine during training, and we hope they will maintain a wide scope of practice as they transition from residency into their professional practices.”