UNBC’S Northern Medical Program welcomed its newest class of graduates at a ceremony yesterday.
“We have a graduating class of 33 students this year,” says Associate Vice President of Medicine Dr. Paul Winwood. “They’ve been a wonderful class and this represents the culmination of 4 years of extremely hard work. But through that time, they’ve become a really cohesive and fun group to be with and it’s just such a pleasure to see them graduating.”
Dr. Winwood says the program has come a long way since 2004.
“We’re now in our twelfth year and it’s really consolidated now. We’re beginning to see our students come back to work as physicians in the north and we’re seeing some real successes amongst our graduates.”
Jolene Hall intends to be one of those returnees. She’s headed to Sault St. Marie to do a two year residency in family medicine but says after that, she’ll be back in Prince George.
“The training here was really great and I would love to work alongside some of these colleagues. We had a lot of opportunities that I don’t think we would have had in a different centre. I think it would be great to come back and I’ve always been looking forward to it and I can’t wait to come back. I’ve only been here for four years but I fell in love.”
Hall says she would highly recommend UNBC’s medical program to anyone considering a career in medicine.
“It’s just great learning and everyone in the community wants you here. Everyone that’s teaching you wants you here – the doctors, the preceptors, the hospital. It’s just a great environment and everybody really cares – not just about the patients but also about our learning and making sure that we get the most so we can be the best that we can be.”
Dr. Winwood says many of Hall’s fellow grads will be pursuing careers in family medicine.
“Around ⅔ of our grads in the past few years have gone into family medicine training. It is the greatest need in the north. And of those, we’ve got eight of them staying in prince George to do further training. There are only about 14 seats in Prince George so it’s great that we’ve got so many staying on.”
The class of 2016 includes 14 graduates from northern BC – three of them are from Prince George.
The Northern Medical program graduation precedes the class’ official ceremony, which will take place on May 25 at UBC.