Global health training in Canadian family medicine residency programmes

Abstract

Objective Canadian family medicine (FM) residency programmes are responding to the growing demand to provide global health (GH) education to their trainees; herein, we describe the various GH activities (GHAs) offered within Canadian FM programmes.Design A bilingual online survey was sent out to all 17 Canadian FM program directors (PDs) and/or an appointed GH representative.Setting Online survey via QualtricsParticipants All 17 Canadian FM PDs and/or an appointed GH representative.Results The response rate was 100% and represented 3250 first-year and second-year FM residents across English and French Canada. All schools stated that they participate in some form of GHAs. There was variation in the level of organisation, participation and types of GHAs offered. Overall, most GHAs are optional, and there is a large amount of variation in terms of resident participation. Approximately one third of programmes receive dedicated funding for their GHAs, and two thirds wish to increase the scope/variety of GHAs.Conclusion These results suggest nationwide interest in developing a workforce trained in GH, but show great discrepancies in training, implementation and education.