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CFPC Exam


Hillary

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Yeah I agree, the CFPC exam is a joke. The "SOOs" were a waste of time. Family med training in Canada is too touchy feely and too coddly, the training programs all focus too much on the behavioral aspect of family medicine and two years is way too short.

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Yeah I agree, the CFPC exam is a joke. The "SOOs" were a waste of time. Family med training in Canada is too touchy feely and too coddly, the training programs all focus too much on the behavioral aspect of family medicine and two years is way too short.

Would you recommend doing an American FM residency instead of the Canadian one? I'd like to come out of residency feeling competent.

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I think FM residencies in the US are definitely more involved. That extra year makes a huge difference. You also have dedicated FM wards where you do in-house call during your FM rotations in addition to clinic. FM "call" in Canada is a joke. You take call from home and field patients' phone calls which usually is "go to emerg". Very rarely you'll go in to admit a patient. In the US, that extra year is spent doing sub-specialty outpatient/inpatient urology, ortho, peds, derm, etc. It makes a huge difference because you come out being more equipped to do more procedures I think.

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I didn't realize the American FM training was so much more involved, with more variety and exposure.

 

It seems a bit ironic, given what seems to be happening in the States with the marginalization of family medicine as a speciality. At least, that's how it seems to me, when I hear about the expanded use of nurse practitionners and physician assistants, the lower remuneration of family physicians in general, and with patients being able to contact specialists without family med involvement.

 

What is family practice like these days in the States? Is it true that the number of new family docs coming out of med school is ridiculously small compared to historically?

 

(Wow, this thread has really gone tangential)

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From the sounds of it I'd probably like to get my training done in the US, but then hightail it out of there back to Canada. The problems you are mentioning bones are also going on in Canada, which is my only reservation about family meds. I don't want to finish residency and then find out that 1/2 the country is going to a homeopath for their health care concerns. :o

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Primary care will never die in Canada. Yes there are more and more NPs but that's because there aren't enough MDs to go around.

 

In the US it depends where you go. On the coasts, and rural areas, FP is big. In the midwest, not so much (thats where GIM and Gen peds do most of the primary care).

 

We need more family docs in Canada. Otherwise the system would implode. If you want to be a full-practice FP, doing your training in the US is way better. I mean, I felt prepared coming out of residency to do clinic work but if you want to do ob, vasectomies, etc, you will probably be better served going to the US.

 

In any case, there are various reasons why I'm leaving family med, and it has nothing to do with pay but job satisfaction (or lack thereof). I can see that if you have more procedural skills, or if you are rural, FP may be more appealing. But day in day out office work with the occasional hospital call just doesn't do it for me.

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I think FM residencies in the US are definitely more involved. That extra year makes a huge difference. You also have dedicated FM wards where you do in-house call during your FM rotations in addition to clinic. FM "call" in Canada is a joke. You take call from home and field patients' phone calls which usually is "go to emerg". Very rarely you'll go in to admit a patient. In the US, that extra year is spent doing sub-specialty outpatient/inpatient urology, ortho, peds, derm, etc. It makes a huge difference because you come out being more equipped to do more procedures I think.

Rural family med training in Canada is quite a bit different from the typical urban programs. My family med rotation was by far my busiest and most useful in pgy1 compared to many of my urban colleagues who found it to be their most "relaxed" rotation. From a procedures standpoint as well, rural training will help you feel much better equipped by the end of residency.

 

My practice will include regular office practice, office procedures (IUDs, endometrial biopsies, joint injections, lesion excision, etc.), obstetrics, in-patient management (daily) and ~3-4 ER shifts monthly. I will be living only about 35 minutes from a tertiary centre. Rural family practice in Canada is a great option for those who like the variety of family med, but who might get bored being just in the office.

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I'm a Comm Med resident right now. I still moonlight as a family doc to make some extra cash. I'm interested in cancer epidemiology, prevention, control and various policy issues. I am also interested in influenza and in general, communicable diseases surveillance, prevention and control.

 

yeah, rural may be better. I think patients are more appreciative of you when you go rural because it's so hard to get docs out there. But urban family med gets boring real fast.

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  • 4 months later...

I'm a rural resident finishing up this summer and it's a really rewarding program. The call on your rural rotations is fairly busy, especially if you decide to do obstetrics; it's not as bad spending all of your time at the hospital anyway if you're in a small town and don't know anybody. They're also the areas where you'd be practicing if you did an R3 in anesthesia or obstetrics, so you get good exposure to people who have made these career choices. In addition when you're on your different core rotations, they tend to understand that you're going into family medicine and cater the rotation to what you need to know (specifically how to manage thing in a rural ER). Of course it all depends on what you're looking for in practice, but as far as I'm concerned it was time well spent.

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  • 1 year later...

It's proving to be ridiculously hard to find out what the pass/fail rates are of the CFPC exam. There's lots of info on what people believe the stats to be, but nothing from the College.

 

Has anyone seen anything specific published, rather than what the rumor

mill says?

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  • 3 weeks later...

Just thought I'd share an email that was sent from our Program Director here in Calgary regarding the recent CCFP exam. I passed, but was surprised with the number that actually don't. Here is the email word for word:

 

Always around this time of year, we receive a summary of the CCFP exam results for everyone who sat in the Spring. Although we have not done so in the past, if I were a resident I'd like to know how my Program has done and how it "compares" with Canada as a whole.This is one of our measurable "outcomes" and my feeling is that we need to be as transparent and open about this as possible.

 

With this in mind and of course the critical need to ensure we maintain anonymity, please see below a summary of the Spring 2011 CCFP exam results for Calgary-

 

Number of current residents who sat in Calgary for the first time 52(RAS and Urban)

Number who passed 46

Number who failed 6 (5 on the SAMP's and 1 on the SOO's).

First time pass rate= 88.6%(highest pass rate for Calgary since 2008 -Spring sitting).

 

 

Calgary Pass Rates(%) 1st time sitting (S=Spring F=Fall)

2000 S 90

2000 F 75

2001 S 96.3

2001 F 100

2002 S 100

2002 F 83.3

2003 S 82.1

2003 F 100

2004 S 76.3

2004 F 100

2005 S 92.1

2005 F 100

2006 S 86.5

2006 F 80

2007 S 86.7

2007 F 50

2008 S 100

2008 F 83.3

2009S 81.6

2009 F 50

2010 S 83.7

2010 F 100

2011 S 88.5

Mean Scores Spring 2011

 

SAMP's

National 71.5

Calgary 72.8

 

SOO's

National 61.8

Calgary 62.6

 

I hope you find this information helpful.

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