First Year
In the first year of this program each resident will spend a period of ten months on the Consultation Services of the Royal Victoria Hospital, the Montreal General Hospital and the Jewish General Hospital. In addition, the trainee will rotate through Reproductive Endocrinology (four to six weeks), Pediatric Endocrinology (four to six weeks) and Laboratory Medicine (two weeks). House staff and medical students rotating through the Endocrine Metabolic services will require supervision by both the attendings and trainees of the Endocrine Service. This affords trainees an important opportunity for developing supervisory and teaching skills.
Second Year
In the second year the resident is required to spend four periods on clinical rotation (at the hospitals above). During the seventeen months of clinical training, emphasis is placed on patient care and on teaching centered around our large number of ambulatory teaching clinics and in-patient consultation services. Clinical training also involves obtaining proficiency in dynamic endocrine testing, thyroid fine-needle aspiration cytology, and in the use of glucose monitoring and insulin delivery devices.
The remaining time in the second year is for the research elective block and can be spent in either laboratory or clinical pursuits. We encourage our trainees to become familiar with available research activities from the beginning of their training. To optimize use of time, a month is typically set aside 4 months before the start of the research block in order to write research protocols and have them reviewed in time for the beginning of the research block. This time is also used for elective training in ophthalmology, ultrasonography, dynamic endocrine testing, cytopathology, etc.
Our Division features a number of internationally-recognized basic and clinical research laboratories that provide an excellent range of research elective opportunities. This period, whose content is by definition flexible and tailored to the trainee’s needs, can also be used for further enhancement in reproductive medicine and in vitro fertilization methodologies, as well as for training in biostatistics. Our large clinical volume represents a rich resource for clinical epidemiology research.
During the entire second year, the trainee participate in a weekly half-day Continuity Clinic where the trainee evaluates and follows his/her patients with the attending of his/her choice.
Teaching and Conferences
Interspersed with the teaching clinics and consultation service, there are regular weekly Endocrine Combined (Grand) Rounds, Journal Clubs, as well as formal and informal teaching sessions (see Conferences/Forums). For instance, a formal teaching session, given by a different attending each Monday from 4:30 – 6:00 PM, provides the residents with in-depth, interactive coverage of endocrine topics submitted by the trainees themselves. This session is extended to an academic half-day once per month (also organized by the trainees), for even greater topic coverage and interaction with attendings.
A large number of lectureships and conferences given by visiting professors are held throughout the year. In addition, we hold an annual McGill Endocrine Retreat, a day-long event attended by staff, fellows and students from throughout the McGill Endocrine Division where the trainees get the opportunity to present their research and become familiar with their colleagues’ work at McGill.
We also encourage our first-year trainees to take the course in Advanced Endocrinology given from September to December at the Royal Victoria Hospital.