Residency/Fellowship Training Programs
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Program Highlights
The charming and beautiful city of Montreal, with its rich history and culture, and its state-of-the-art cancer centres, is the home of the McGill Radiation Oncology Program. We aim to train future leaders in the specialty with special skills in quality improvement, patient safety, and the stewardship of healthcare resources. Our program is the perfect size – large enough for a vast array of clinical volume and expertise, but small enough for one-on-one learning with true collaborative goal setting for achieving individualized learning objectives.
The program is constantly innovating with unique teaching and learning approaches, including:
- Multidisciplinary Oncology Residents Education (MORE) sessions which bring together trainees in surgical oncology, radiation oncology, and medical oncology every two weeks to discuss multidisciplinary management by site.
- Longitudinal Quality Improvement (QI) Curriculum where residents have mentor support to lead their own QI team and project to completion.
Program Curriculum
The residency program in radiation oncology is based at the McGill University Health Centre and the Jewish General Hospital and involves 1 or more community rotations. The program is designed to ensure that at the completion of training, the resident will be capable of independent care of ambulatory and hospitalized patients with malignant disease, including and most especially the planning and the supervision of treatment with radiotherapy. The program provides vigorous clinical experience in the management of all types of cancers and offers several courses and tutorials in relevant clinical and basic sciences.
Program Requirements
Beginning July 1, 2019 all programs across Cananda transitioned to the competency-based medical education approach of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (RCPSC) called Competence by Design (CBD). CBD breaks down specialist education into a series of integrated stages – starting at transition to discipline and moving through practice.
Trainees will obtain clinical experience in both inpatient and outpatient settings in all of the following:
- Breast cancer
- Gastrointestinal cancers
- Genito-urinary cancers
- Gynecologic cancers
- Head and neck and thyroid cancers
- Lymphoma/hematologic cancers
- Central nervous system and eye cancers
- Soft tissue and bone cancers
- Skin cancers
- Thoracic cancers
- Pediatric radiation oncology
- Benign conditions treated with radiotherapy
- A minimum of one block in a community-based radiation oncology practice
Please see the Royal College National Standards for training AFTER 1 July 2019: Competencies Training experiences
Program Content
The breadth and scope of the patient volume at McGill University provides an ideal environment for clinical training. Residents are assigned to site-specific clinical rotations practicing under the supervision of attending physicians. Although training occurs largely in a one-on-one, apprenticeship-like format, residents progressively acquire increasing responsibility while they refine their skills in evidence-based management and independent decision-making. In-patient exposure is obtained as a consultant when on call and on in-patient service.
In addition to the clinical exposure, residents actively participate in numerous quality assurance activities including patient management rounds, morbidity and mortality rounds, site-specific quality assurance meetings (peer review), and multidisciplinary tumour boards.
Education activities consist of highly protected regularly scheduled activities. The focus is on creating a stimulating, collaborative, and engaging environment for all trainees. These activities include radiation oncology half-day teaching sessions, Multidisciplinary Oncology Resident Education (MORE) sessions, journal clubs, applied physics sessions, clinical physics case reviews alongside medical physics residents, brachytherapy teaching sessions, quality improvement and radiobiology seminars. Formal courses in physics and radiobiology are integrated into the formal teaching curriculum. Frequently, residents are released from clinical duties to attend high profile, site-specific local conferences and Visiting Professor series which attract internationally renowned speakers to McGill.
Physician wellness has been prioritized by McGill and residents have full access to The Well Office. As well, Radiation Oncology Ice Cream rounds are held regularly to discuss resident wellness topics in a safe and relaxing environment. Career counselling and wellness topics are discussed at a yearly residency program retreat.
The McGill Radiation Oncology Program is mainly distributed over two main sites: The Jewish General Hospital (JGH), and the Cedars Cancer Centre of the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) – Glen Site. The latter is located at the brand new, state-of-the-art MUHC facility which consolidated 5 Montreal hospitals onto one colossal site in 2015. McGill Radiation Oncology Faculty at the JGH and MUHC have been world leaders in areas such as high-dose rate brachytherapy, stereotactic radiosurgery, intraoperative radiation, and intensity-modulated treatment.
Training Sites
- Cedars Cancer Centre – MUHC Glen Site
- Montreal General Hospital
- Royal Victoria Hospital
- Jewish General Hospital
- Montreal Children’s Hospital
- Montreal Neurological Institute
- Centre hospitalier de Gatineau
- Others eg. Université Laval and/or Université de Montréal teaching hospitals. Electives may be arranged at outside centers including, Hôpital de la Cité-de-la-Santé and Hôpital Charles-Lemoyne.
Additional Information
Residents are encouraged to pursue electives in inter-provincial or international academic sites.
Residents may choose a rotation in a peripheral, non-affiliated radiation oncology centre upon approval of the Program Director.
Contact Information
Program Co-Directors
Dr. Magali Lecavalier
Dr. Joanne Alfieri
Program Contact
Program Administrator
Scott Cortenbach
admin.radonc [at] mcgill.ca
For Radiation Oncology Fellowship opportunities, please consult the Fellowship Programs page of the Postgraduate Medical Education website.