These Northern Rural Clinical Learning webpages were created to introduce some of the people and places of northern B.C. to prospective and current healthcare learners. 

Training more rural and Indigenous physicians, to serve rural and Indigenous people, is an important part of UBC Medicine’s Social Responsibility and Accountability commitment.

“The need for doctors in rural and remote communities has never been more urgent. One of our goals at the Faculty of Medicine is to help meet that need by serving underrepresented communities in rural, remote, and northern regions across British Columbia.” 
   - UBC Medicine, Admissions, Northern and Rural Pathway/MD Undergraduate Program (MDUP) 

At the Northern Medical Program, students can pursue an extended immersion in rural clinical learning within the MDUP curriculum in Year 3 through the Integrated Community Clerkship (ICC), or, unique to the NMP, through the Northern Regional Integrated Clerkship (NRIC). 

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Rural practice, longitudinal care, and rural generalist family medicine

Rural generalism refers to family medicine as practiced in rural communities. This is an important skill set and a very meaningful career, as physicians in small towns will help undifferentiated patients across the full range of patient presentations, and provide longitudinal care for patients over extended periods of time. 

Within rural generalism there is plenty of room for practitioners to decide what sort of practice is best for them, but in general, rural generalist physicians experience and enjoy variety, continuity of care, broad scope of practice, teamwork, living and working rurally, and being part of a community where you will know patients outside of work and skillfully navigate professional boundaries.