Major residency expansion to help tackle family doctor shortage

The University of Toronto’s department of family and community medicine (DFCM) is the largest academic department of its kind in the world, and it’s about to get even bigger. 

To help address the shortage of family doctors, Ontario's Ministry of Health tasked DFCM with adding 40 new residency positions. With family doctors caring for an average of 1,350 patients, that could mean up to 54,000 more patients with access to critical primary care.

Currently, DFCM’s 2,216 faculty members train 375 family medicine residents and 1,100 medical students a year at over 15 Family Medicine Teaching Units (FMTUs) and 40 teaching locations, from Moose Factory to Wiarton and throughout the Greater Toronto Area.

This training is resource-intensive for both learners and their teachers. During the 24-month program, each resident is supported by a wide array of preceptors, experienced family physicians who supervise and support the development of doctors who have chosen to specialize in family medicine, as well as other clinical specialists, health professional educators and administrative support staff.

“With an estimated 2.5 million Ontarians living without a family doctor, we need to prepare our residents to be highly competent, comprehensive and compassionate physicians, and support them to stay in comprehensive family practice,” says Batya Grundland, assistant professor and DFCM’s acting program director, postgraduate education. 

“At a time when family doctors are overstretched, the willingness to take on learners shows a deep commitment to the future of our discipline and the health system as a whole.”

DFCM added six new residency spots in 2023 and eight in 2024 thanks to a new teaching site at Humber River Health and the new Garrison Creek satellite site at University Health Network’s (UHN) Toronto Western Hospital.

“The Toronto Western UHN site has hosted family medicine residents for over 50 years, so with the expansion of our clinical services to the Garrison Creek site it was a natural fit to welcome eight new family medicine residents,” says Camille Lemieux, an associate professor, family doctor and Chief of Family Medicine at UHN.

“Our faculty are dedicated, skilled teachers and thrilled to support the expansion of family medicine training in Ontario.”

For 2025, DFCM is creating new training opportunities for 10 family medicine residents thanks to existing locations taking on new and expanded roles as core teaching units. A new stream in Midland/Orillia is already accepting applications, and our Markham site is collaborating with our new expansion site, Uxbridge, to create a new stream for 2 residents in a 2-year family medicine integrated model.

Another 10 residents will train at the expanding Scarborough Health Network aligned with the new Scarborough Academy of Medicine and Integrated Health, while the remaining 6 spots will go to current DFCM sites in locations such as Midland/Orillia, once the FMTU is built and further capacity is developed.  

The department is also adding six new enhanced skills spots, taking DFCM’s total to 51. This will allow more residents to complete further training in areas such as emergency medicine, addiction medicine, palliative care or hospital medicine.

“This expansion is a major initiative for DFCM and has only been made possible through the dedication of both long-standing and newly recruited preceptors, who generously commit their time and expertise to training the next generation of family physicians,” says Stuart Murdoch, associate professor and DFCM’s acting vice-chair of education.

“While this is an important step, expanding residency positions alone won’t solve the family doctor shortage,” he adds. “We need to do more to attract medical students to comprehensive family medicine and support practicing family doctors to stay in the profession long-term.”