The Rural and/or Northern Training section of the application is used to assess applicants’ suitability for training at the Northern Medical Program and the rural seats of the Southern Medical Program. If you are open to training at one of these sites and believe you would be a good candidate, we encourage you to complete this section of the application.
What makes a good candidate? Rural experience, broadly defined. Many applicants have lived, worked, volunteered, or participated in recreational activities in different areas of the province. We are particularly interested in northern, Interior, and/or rural experiences, so we encourage you to include these on your application, even if you are not sure the location is ‘rural enough.’ This goes for all applicants interested in this section, in fact – we evaluate rurality internally, so if you believe something is relevant to this section of the application, please include it even if you are unsure about the location.
Similarly, although many applicants who complete this section are BC residents, we also value rural experience outside of BC. Out-of-province applicants who are interested in northern and/or rural training are equally encouraged to complete this section of the application.
Completing the Rural and/or Northern Training section gives you more options in terms of site selection. Applicants who do not complete this section are not considered for the NMP or the rural SMP seats. However, completing this section does not mean you have to rank NMP and SMP as your top sites, or even rank them at all. It just leaves the door open for you to rank them if you are interested. Applicants are not allowed to go back and complete this section later on, so the only chance you have to complete this section is when you are filling out the application.
For more information about the NMP and SMP, please see the Northern Medical Program and Southern Medical Program websites. As a reminder, all UBC MD Undergraduate Program sites deliver the same curriculum, and students at all sites graduate with an MD from UBC. There is one application for the program. Applicants invited to interview rank their preferred sites during the interview stage of the application process, and applicants are allocated to sites in late spring.
Hello admissions – Thank you for the thoughtful post. In term of MD/PhD applicants, am I right to assume that having secured a supervisor and research project in Vancouver implies we must remain in Vancouver for the MD component of our degree.
Thank you in advance for your assistance!
I would think that would be the case, due to logistics, but could you please check with the MD/PhD Program to be sure? They should be able to help.
Thank you Admissions! I have confirmed that MD/PhD students are free to complete their MD years at a different site in case other applicants were wondering.
That’s really helpful! Thank you for letting us know. If any other applicants are interested in doing this in future years, we would encourage you to check with the MD/PhD office when you apply just to make sure this is still their policy.
I am likely going to be moving to Whitehorse in the fall for employment. Is Whitehorse considered within the Northern/Rural application, as it is in the North? Or is it too much of an urban center to be considered within the Northern/Rural category?
Also, is there a general size of town that is accepted as rural? I looked through the help guide and no specifics were given as to the size of towns in regards to the definition of rural.
Thanks very much.
As the post says, “we evaluate rurality internally, so if you believe something is relevant to this section of the application, please include it even if you are unsure about the location.” We do not provide applicants with a definition of what is rural/not rural, so if you are thinking about including a rural, northern or Interior experience or relationship, just include it even if you think the location may not be ‘rural enough.’
A note about your specific situation: if you are applying this year, you wouldn’t be able to put down your Whitehorse experience yet because it will take place after June 1, 2016.
I was wondering how it works in terms of site selection and ranking at the interview stage if you complete the rural training section. I am very interested in pursuing training in rural and remote areas, however also understand the value of staying in Vancouver for my training (not the least being that my husband is here for at least another 3 years). If I complete the rural training section, but then come the interview rank Vancouver as my 1st choice, how would this affect the evaluation of my rural section in regards to the Northern and SMP rural seats?
Site preferences are used only to assign applicants to sites and are not used in admissions decisions. You do have to complete the rural training section if you want to be considered for the NMP and/or the SMP rural seats, but the selection committee cannot see your site rankings when they are deciding who is admissible to the program and who is not.
What specifically designates the rural program. I live in Delta and I have friends and family who are moving to Vernon BC, which would make me very interested in attending medical school and residency there in Kelowna. So what I am asking is what is the difference between the SMP and SMP rural?
The SMP rural seats were created to address the need for physicians in smaller and rural communities, particularly in the Interior. It is hoped that by offering students from a rural background the opportunity to pursue their clinical education at smaller regional centres in the Interior, they will return to rural and other underserved areas to practice upon completion of their training. However, clerkships at the smaller regional centres are open to all SMP students, and students admitted through the rural seats are not identified as such once in the program. This means that there is no difference between “regular SMP” and “rural SMP” once the program starts. The rural seats are for admission purposes only.
A note for you: Vernon is one of the distributed clerkship sites! You can read about the SMP training sites here.