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Family Medicine vs. Community Medicine


Guest anon54321

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Guest anon54321

Hi,

First of all let me say that this site is great - you've done a fabulous job Ian!

 

I have a quick clarification question: Can anyone tell me the difference between Community Medicine and Family Medicine? Also, how does Family Rural Medicine differ from these (I think I ran across this term once but can't remember where).

 

Thanks!

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Guest strider2004

Community medicine focuses more of the community as a whole as opposed to individual patients. There of 10 spots in Canada and of those, 3 schools offer community medicine in conjunction with a family medicine certificate. That means that you're licensed as a family physician as well. For the rest, they give you clinical expsure to medicine but most ofi t is public health education. Basically, it's a desk job. The medical advisor at Walkerton probably has done community medicine. You look at trends and decide what health policies are best. It can be an exciting field because you're trying to catch illnesses before they become epidemics. It's usually a 5 year program. In UBC, you spend 2 years in the rural medicine rotation, then 2 years of years of public health(in class), then a year somewhere else in the world so you get more health exposure. That's probably the most exciting part. Imagine going to congo and researching the spread of HIV or how malaria is moving northwards or how the west nile virus migrates with the birds from S. America.

 

Family medicine is a 2 year program that trains you to be the primary care physician. You become the gatekeeper to peoples' problems. It's different from Community Meidcine in that you deal more with people instead of populations.

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Guest Liana

What are the schools that offer community medicine (presumably you are talking about residency)?

Is this a competitive area to get into, or average?

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Guest Kirsteen

Hi there Liana,

 

UT has an excellent program--(generally you would complete the Family Medicine residency first) then enter a MSc./MHSc./PhD program in Public Health Sciences (within which you can specialize in Community Health, Epidemiology, Health Promotion, etc). (I believe that their Master's program is only available to health care professionals.) I took a graduate course within their department this past fall and there were a number of physicians in my tutorial group, upgrading their skills. Check out the UT Dept. of Public Health Sciences for all their info including courses offered, etc. (Sorry, but I don't have the link handy, although you should be able to easily find it on Google, etc..)

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

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Guest strider2004

COMMUNITY MEDICINE

McGill University

University of Ottawa - 0 quota for 2002

University of Toronto 3 spots

McMaster University

University of Manitoba - 0 quota for 2002

University of Calgary

University of British Columbia 2 spots

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