Your first year at Queen's-Lakeridge Medicine is divided up into Term 1 (September - December), Term 2 (January to April) and your Community Month placement (May). In addition to each term's courses (and their exams), there will be a few other items you will be expected to work on during the year. We have categorized those under the heading "Year Long."
Where the Lakeridge campus differs from main campus is that our core medicine classes are delivered through Integrated Clinical Presentation (ICP) blocks that range from a couple weeks to a month. You do one ICP block at a time in small-group learning (SGL) sessions that are case-based and separated based on the life-cycle. This means that we do not have traditional lecture style teaching for things like anatomy and physiology - we learn in our SGL sessions twice a week, guided by two family physician tutors per group. There are also weekly to biweekly 'Basic Science' lectures from a professor at Kingston to help supplement our learning.
More details on the courses are below - scroll to the bottom of this page to see an example of what a typical week might look like!
Term 1
- Your introduction to SGL style learning and all things family medicine! Taking place throughout September, this course is designed to get you to start thinking like a doctor.
MEDS611 - Adult 1
- Your first full length ICP course! Get ready to encounter cases that will become your bread and butter as a family physician.
MEDS612 - Pregnancy and Newborn
- For the last ICP course of Term 1, you'll learn all about the stages of pregnancy, delivery, and the first few months of a baby's life.
MEDS112-002 - Critical Appraisal, Research and Lifelong Learning (aka CARL)
- Statistics, epidemiology and appraisal of medical literature all rolled into one course that runs all term!
MEDS113A-002 - Introduction to Physician Roles 1A
- Professional Foundations is ... you guessed it: teaching you how to be a medical professional! Also a term long course, it involves topics such as law, ethics and professionalism. This course isn’t structured like your other courses, instead its components are predominantly experiential, such as the first patient program, observerships, interprofessional shadowing and community week!
MEDS613 - Population Health
- Understanding health at a population level, and learning about public health approaches throughout Term 1.
MEDS114A-002 - Clinical & Communication Skills 1
- See the 'Clinical Skills' tab under the Queen's Medicine page for more details.
Term 2
MEDS620 - Childhood and Adolescent
- Your first ICP of Term 2, you'll pick up after the newborn stage and meet cases that take you all the way up until adulthood!
MEDS621 - Adult 2
- The sister course of Adult 1. You'll become a pro at all the common presentations to family clinics by the end!
MEDS622 - Complexity and Multimorbidity
- Get ready to step it up a notch as you learn about some of the complex conditions and presentations you'll see throughout your practice. You'll start getting used to thinking like an ER doctor throughout this course!
MEDS623 - Ageing and End of Life
- Your last ICP course of the year, you'll see what health is like for many patients towards the end of their life.
MEDS113B-002 - Introduction to Physician Roles 1B
- Continues to build on the law, ethics and professionalism material from term 1.
MEDS625 - Health Determinants
- This course builds on Population Health from term 1, with a focus on how social, structural, environmental and commercial factors influence individual health.
MEDS114B-002 - Clinical & Communication Skills 1
- See the 'Clinical Skills' tab under the Queen's Medicine page for more details.
Community Month
First Patient Program
- A program where you and a partner follow a patient with a chronic illness in the Durham region! This is a super meaningful program, and one that is unique to Queen's.
Community Week
- Your first taste of what you'll get to do during Community Month, you'll spend a week in January with a community preceptor in a rural community. You'll likely return to the same community for your month-long placement in May, so this is a great time to explore and get involved!
Observerships
- Opportunities for you to follow and work with physicians in their practices prior to your clinical clerkship to learn about the different specialties. These are self-arranged, and you are required to spend at least two half-days with different physicians in different specialties in your first year.
- Another unique feature of the Lakeridge program, you'll be assigned a mentor throughout the year. Your mentor will be a family physician practicing in the Durham region, and you'll join them every week for at least a half-day session. Here, you'll see real patients and begin getting comfortable taking histories and using what you learn in your clinical skills course!
Kingston Week
- For the last week of your first year, you'll spend the week staying at the Kingston campus. You'll learn all things anatomy and physiology, with full access to the anatomy labs, tutors, and resources. You'll also have a chance to explore the beautiful campus and Kingston community!
Typical Week
