Each year, the two sites offer over 500 placements to students and residents from the University of Alberta's Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry. They are placed in rotations several weeks long within various departments where they learn the art and science of their chosen profession.
Dr. Mike Boulanger is the undergraduate site co-ordinator for the Emergency Medical rotation at the Misericordia. Fourth year students spend a month learning and providing patient care under the one-to-one guidance of Emergency physicians each shift.
"This is an excellent experience for them," says Dr. Boulanger, "We see a bit of everything—cuts and fractures, stab wounds, headaches, sore eyes, chest and abdominal pain, sick kids and chronic conditions like asthma. It's front-line medicine."
"Students learn to think a bit differently—focusing on the presenting problem and management with time at a premium," he says, noting the extreme pressures in emergency departments today add challenge to the experience. "For many of them, it is the first time they are encountering a new patient working from nursing documentation on a chart."
Working closely with the Emergency physician, students review their assessment and ask questions about the wide variety of clinical cases they encounter. Weekly intensive lectures on emergency medicine augment their training. "Our physicians have many years of clinical experience and knowledge to pass on to the students," says Dr. Boulanger. "You can't get that from a textbook."
Meaningful physician-student interactions are key to the experience, says Dr. Brian Wirzba, principle teaching physician for Medicine at the Grey Nuns. As a specialist in internal medicine, he introduces students to a broad field of medicine that deals with a variety of patients—including people with cancers, chronic conditions, and complex medical histories.
"They see a very collegial approach to medicine here," says Dr. Wirzba. "Students interact with emergency, radiology, surgery, and many other areas. Medicine is so broad, they can't know everything all the time. Instead we emphasize the approaches to assessing patients, deciding what to investigate and how and then developing the most appropriate treatment plan for the patient."
Physicians act as mentors as students learn by doing. Senior students take on patients as their own, interacting with them several times a day and consulting with the physician—who is ultimately responsible for the patient's care.
"The benefit for the patients is that they have a resident who is very focused and attentive, going over every detail and getting guidance from an experienced physician," he says. "As physicians we can focus on really connecting with the patient and answering all of their concerns. That's the best of both worlds."
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