Students and Residents

More info for students

Following is some important information to assist you in the preparations and organization of working in our hospital as a medical student.

Please read carefully and keep handy throughout your elective preparations for reference.  At any time please feel free to contact our physician recruiter (Tracey Romkey) with questions or concerns.

Regarding travel, you are responsible to book and pay for your own flights to and from Inuvik. It takes at least two days to get here (unless you start out from Calgary or Edmonton) because the flights to Inuvik leave early in the morning, but you should be able to get home in one day.  There is an early morning flight from Vancouver that may allow you to get here in one day if you use First Air – it is in your best interest to check out flight schedules on the Internet and see what is available to you. You will most likely find the best and most economical route is via Edmonton and Yellowknife.

Airlines that fly to Inuvik form Edmonton and Calgary are:

Canadian North  http://www.canadiannorth.com/ 

First Air   http://www.firstair.ca/  

The airline that flies from Whitehorse is:

Air North  https://www.flyairnorth.com/servlet/AvailableFlightsServlet

CN and FA offer seat sales on a regular basis so keep an eye out for that. If you have any problems or would like some help with airlines and reservations, don't hesitate to contact your Inuvik Coordinator for assistance.

We are also adding the link to the website where you can get the information and application for the travel bursary NWT offers medical students. It is:

http://www.hlthss.gov.nt.ca/Careers/Students/student_bursary.asp#Emmett%20Hall 

Should you qualify, be sure to fill out Appendix A of the application at the same time you apply for your education permit as opposed to waiting until after you complete the elective. This will let you know if assistance is available to you before you attend the elective.

Accommodations for students here in Inuvik are not provided to you by the hospital. You will be responsible to locate and pay for your own accommodations.  Your elective coordinator will assist you in your search for reasonably priced non-commercial accommodations within the town but it is advisable for you to consider that you may have to pay for commercial accommodations.  Please contact your elective coordinator (Tracey Romkey) ASAP regarding this issue as it may be a determining factor in your decision to come to Inuvik.

A meal card is provided for you during your elective with us so you don't have to worry about the added expense of groceries. The food in the cafeteria at the hospital is quite good and provides a good variety. You should find it more than adequate. 

Remote Rural Elective

As rural physicians and founding members of the Society of Rural Physicians of Canada we know that providing a truly rural elective to students and residents will make you aware of the rewards of being a rural physician in Canada. It will also make you aware of the great need for rural physicians.

We have been rural preceptors for the last fifteen years and have been officially affiliated with McGill University, the University of Alberta and the University of British Columbia. Students and residents come from Canadian medical schools, as well as from medical schools in Europe, Argentina and New Zealand. Approximately 120 residents and more than 70 students rotated through our program over the last 15 years. Many of our students and residents return as locums or full-time physicians to Inuvik, many others go on to work in other rural areas in Canada and the world.

This elective is truly a remote rural medicine elective. In fact, we feel that our elective here at the Inuvik Regional Hospital is THE ULTIMATE RURAL PLACEMENT! However, this is not a “medical tourism” opportunity! The elective has evolved over time to become a multifaceted program. Feedback about the quality and range of experience has been overwhelmingly positive and most participants feel that this has been their most enjoyable learning experience.

As a student or resident you will be participating in the full spectrum of rural medicine. As this is a hospital-based program, most mornings will be spent in three areas: rounds on in-patients, operating room time for both anesthesia and surgical skills and the ER. Afternoons will primarily be spent in the family clinics either at the hospital or at the satellite clinic (Arctic Family Medical House) downtown. Time will also be spent on home, long-term care and group home visits.

You will be included in the on-call schedule. If surgical or other interesting cases present after hours, you will be called to participate in the experience. We expect the same responsibility and accountability from our students and residents as we do from our physicians.

You will participate in multi-day clinics in some of the remote fly-in communities served by our hospital. There will be opportunities to participate in medical evacuations by helicopter or fixed wing aircraft as well. Time permitting, you may be able to spend time with visiting specialists, however the emphasis is on family medicine in this unique setting. We expect your full cooperation and participation in the program as it is offered.

We offer free accommodation in a hotel style room in the hospital residence and you will receive free meal tickets for the hospital cafeteria. A travel bursary is available for Canadian medical students in their clerkship year, called the Emmett Hall Clerkship Elective Bursary. This bursary gets depleted by the middle of the financial year, so early application is essential.

All of our physicians will participate in your learning experience and all will participate in your evaluation. You will work hard during your time here but you will be rewarded with invaluable experience and skills development. We know that those of you choosing this elective will be coming back!

Physician recruiter Tracey Romkey, who also doubles as Braam's capable assistant, can be contacted for more information.

Telephone: (867) 777 8108.
E mail address: tracey_romkey@gov.nt.ca 

"Hands On" in Inuvik

I could not have asked for a better rural medicine experience than that which was provided in Inuvik. Dr. de Klerk organized an outstanding experience for me. He ensured that I was exposed to a diverse range of environments, preceptors, disciplines, and patients and he remained open to both inquiries and feedback. My education in Inuvik, from assisting in the operating room to descending in the MedEvac plane into Sachs Harbour, was profoundly "hands on". In addition to working in a full-service family practice environment, you will also have opportunities to attend overnight clinics in the outlying communities, assist surgeons and anesthetists in the OR, work in the ER, assist with deliveries, and to join the MedEvac team (medical evacuations), both from outlying communities into Inuvik and from Inuvik to Yellowknife or Edmonton. If you are prepared to work hard, you will have a unforgettable time in Inuvik.

My time outside of the medical community was unforgettable as well. While I was in the North, I attended the Northern Arts Festival, cooked and ate cariboo, hiked, fished, mountain biked, and came face to face with a grizzly. Oh, and make sure you ask Dr. de Klerk about his Kayak.



Cailan MacPherson, UBC

A Dalhousie Perspective

Thank you again for allowing me the opportunity to spend time at the Inuvik site. It will no doubt be the most useful 4 weeks of electives this year in terms of learning and experience.

This small centre allows one to easily get to know the system. OR time I found extremely valuable, good practice assisting with surgery with suturing and more, working with Dr. Basynat was very useful. Anaesthesia experience has seriously made me consider an extra year of training in that domain. Med-evacs were useful and provided good exposure to pre-hospital care in the north. Community clinics were really useful to provide perspective on distances and resources (or lack thereof) in the more remote settings. Call schedule I found appropriate, being on for the first two weeks was good as I had a chance to take part in almost everything that came in. I especially enjoyed the collegiality of staff, something I have rarely seen at other centres - a great environment to work and learn in. The twice-weekly rounds I found valuable from a learning perspective as well, and presentations were useful. I presented on hypothermia in the last rounds, fairly pertinent at the time as there were two fatalities from snowmobiles through the ice in Fort McPherson at the time.

Finally, the setup with the room and meal plan made the logistics easier, although the cafeteria was rarely ready to serve breakfast at 7AM. NWT has a travel bursary available to cover flight costs, though in 2006 their budget run out as of August for the fiscal year, so no med students were reimbursed for travel costs after that date.

Thanks again for accommodating me on the Inuvik elective and please extend my thanks to all of the staff - I look forward to returning again soon!

Pascall Gellrich, Dalhousie

From Manchester to Inuvik

Remote Rural Elective

My journey from Manchester to Inuvik began when I received an email from Dr de Klerk offering me an elective place.  I had contacted many rural hospitals in Canada, and was delighted to get a response – but where was Inuvik?  A minute with my atlas and I knew I was not just going to a remote hospital, but to the ARCTIC! – my imagination ran wild – would I see the northern lights?  Snowy arctic wilderness?  Polar bears?  Well, sadly there are no polar bears in Inuvik, but the northern lights were spectacular, and seeing the landscape change from high summer, through a colourful autumn, to the beginning of icy winter over only 8 weeks was quite an experience.

The elective consists of a mixture of GP clinics and emergency medicine, with some time in the OR a few mornings a week.  I got lots of practice suturing and assessed far more patients than is possible in busy teaching hospitals in the UK.  In the OR, the visiting surgeons and anaesthetists were happy to teach, and I got plenty of experience of assisting, and practice at airway management.  The high points of my trip were visits to the tiny remote communities of Aklavik and Paulatuk, to help with 2-3 day GP clinics.  It was a real pleasure to meet some of the elders, and the experienced nurse practitioners who ran the local health centres gave me a valuable insight into local health and social issues.  It was also interesting to see GPs with a broader role than is possible in the UK - working in a small team in a very remote location, where specialist help is a two hours away by plane. 

I really enjoyed this elective, it was hard work but a really great mixture of experience, in a very friendly environment - perfect for taking first steps into medical practice. 

Christine Beeston
5^th year medical student
University of Manchester, UK.

Inuvik Elective, Jennifer Pierce

My one month elective in Inuvik was a fantastic experience. Mornings were spent in Surgery or Anesthesia where there were opportunities to assist and perform procedures. Afternoons were spent in Family medicine clinics or in the Emergency Department. Over the month, I got to know several patients seen at the Family medicine clinics and followed through on their care. In Emergency, it was most satisfying to continue following the patients that I admitted. The permanent and locuming physicians were excellent and extremely approachable. Formal teaching sessions were held on a daily basis and these were supplemented by frequent informal teaching. I got a real taste of the north spending two days doing traveling clinics in Aklavik, a smaller more remote community. I came away from this elective having learned a great deal of medicine as well as a greater appreciation for life in the North.

2006 Elective

I can't think of how my three-month elective placement at Inuvik Regional Hospital could have been any better. It was a perfect environment for me to take on far more medical responsibility than I had been given in the past, and to implement previous learning from my medical training.

During my placement I worked in the Emergency Room, family practice and hospital clinics. I travelled to isolated communities for clinics, assisted in the operating theatre and went on frequent medical evacuations. It was clear that a wide range of skills paired with the confidence to use them was required when working in the north. My time in Inuvik helped to develop my clinical skills and confidence - both vital for starting my medical career off on the right foot.

My placement in Inuvik was no holiday - in addition to the regular hours I undertook on-call night shifts and travelled on a large number of medical evacuations to both the isolated communities and down to Yellowknife. While I was pretty knackered at the end of my placement I loved every minute of it. I'm already looking at how I can arrange to return to Inuvik after I graduate.

Kynan Bazley, Dunedin School of Medicine, New Zealand