Generally, the Residency Training program is for two years. Trainees are primarily based at the Dr. H. Bliss Murphy Cancer Centre in St. John’s. This Centre is closely affiliated with Memorial University Medical School and the Health Sciences Centre, a tertiary care hospital providing a wide range of services to the province.

Trainees work with staff Medical Oncologists, and progressive responsibility is assigned correlating with their level of training. Trainees rotate through breast, GI, GU, lung, mixed malignancy rotations and ward rotations, as well as Palliative Medicine, Hematology, and Radiation Oncology. Elective opportunities are also available in various areas; sequence and content of training can be individualized to the needs of individual trainees.

Teaching occurs at the bedside during weekly inpatient handover rounds, as well at journal club and academic half-days where attendance is mandatory. There are well established tumour boards meetings for breast, GI, GU, lung and neuro oncology. There are also monthly Oncology Grand Rounds and Morbidity and Mortality rounds in which trainees participate.

Trainees are encouraged and supported in research endeavours in the Discipline of Oncology which includes basic science and researchers. Trainees are encouraged to become involved in the ongoing research of the discipline.

In July 2018, Medical Oncology introduced competency based medical education in an initiative called Competence by Design (CBD). This initiative aims to enhance patient care by aligning medical education and lifelong learning with evolving patients’ needs and empowering learners to be more fully engaged in their education process. CBD will use time as a frame work rather than the basis for progression.  Residency programs will be broken down into stages with each involving a series of milestones based on acquired competency.  These milestones will create more targeted learning outcomes and will involve more frequent formative assessments within the clinic work place to ensure that residents are developing and receiving feedback on the skills they need. 

Training Sites

Dr. H. Bliss Murphy Cancer Centre and the Health Sciences Centre in St. John's
The Palliative Care Unit, located at the Dr. Leonard A. Miller Centre, St. John's